Sojourn
by Sango
Summary: How might things have been different, if Bra were Bulma and Vegeta's firstborn, instead of Trunks? A story set in both the present and Mirai timelines, with a few twists. In-progress.
1. Awakening

insert standard disclaimer here. I don't own Dragonball Z or any of the characters. 

Sojourn, ch 1   


Awakening  
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I think that was the day I first fell in love with him. I mean, he was gorgeous: tall and muscular, with dark hair that begged to have fingers run through it, and black eyes perpetually gleaming with mischief. If he hadn't been a childhood friend, I would never have been able to talk to him without stuttering, at that tender age of fifteen. But I had grown up knowing him, laughing at his cheesy jokes and being an active participant in his creative pranks. Humor was an escape for him. He used to say that laughter made you feel alive. 

There were times, later, when I wondered if I'd ever laugh again. 

Anyway, he was always just an older-brother figure to me, until that day. It all changed, then... 

Against all of my mother's wishes, he had begun training me in the Art. I knew that I was needed; Earth had so few warriors left. But even were it not so, I would have begged him for it. The call to battle quickened my blood. I might not have known my father, but his fabled strength of will ran through my veins -- the desire to fight, the desire to be strong, the desire to win. And for us, there was even more at stake. Everything. 

That morning, they were destroying one of the few places left where people could relax, maintaining the pretense that the world wasn't actually ending. A theme park, in one of the more remote locations. There were families. Children. Visions of the monstrous things done to those innocents will probably haunt my dreams, forever. 

The pair of them were riding a carousel, heedless of the bloodied corpses scattered around the ground, like the callously discarded toys that they were. Bright crimson pooled everywhere, in garish contrast to the shimmering viridian of the tidy, well-manicured lawn, as a breeze flew along, gentle as a lover's caress, and set both to dancing. The perversion of such an idyllic summer scene caused me to double over and retch into an unbelievably pristine trash can, as unblemished as the day it was made, miraculously untouched while the world fell down around it. 

So many people…I burned with the utter injustice of it. All that these cyborgs knew was an all-consuming lust for chaos and death. I wished, not for the first time, and certainly not the last, for the power to eradicate them, for good. Bitterly, I reflected that even if such strength were now mine, it would make no difference to these poor souls. A day of escape had cost them much more than the jacked-up price of admission tickets. The wind chilled the tears on my cheeks before I even realized that I was crying. 

As much as it affected me, it devastated him even more. He could never hide anything; his heart was always on his sleeve, and it was huge. He cared about everyone...he hated to see anything hurt. He flared into Super the instant we touched down in front of them, and his eyes were so bright that I couldn't look at him directly. The afterimage was burnt onto the inside my eyelids. 

"Stay back, Bra." I'd never heard him sound so dangerous. 

"Hai." I stepped back, out of his way, but sunk into a ready stance anyway, just in case. I knew better than to let down my guard. 

He flew at them, faster than I could see, and exchanged a series of earth-shattering blows with the dark-haired one, each of which would have blown a normal human into pieces. They seemed almost equally matched, but out of pure fury my young sensei began to gain the upper hand, until the blonde stepped in, hurling him through half a dozen buildings. 

Against just one of them, he might have stood a chance. He had them beat in raw power, individually. But they were also tireless, with an inexhaustible supply of energy, and there was the possibility that he would have depleted his power before managing to kill one. Unfortunately, they were never separated. And the two of them together were more powerful than all of Chikyuu's mightiest fighters combined, felling them one by one, on a day I was too young to remember. 

He fought admirably, firing blast after blast, and refusing to acknowledge the pain that must have nearly crippled him. But inevitably, his strength ran out. He faltered, and she moved in for the kill-- 

"No!" Mindless of my orders -- _what was the point of obeying a dead teacher?_ -- I charged in to deflect the blow, and managed to, if only with the assistance of sheer surprise. They'd both forgotten me. I planted a knee in her gut, doubling her over and knocking the breath out of her with a hiss. Gohan, laid out on the ground, struggled to his hands and knees, and tried unsuccessfully to rise. 

Her eyes glittered pale blue death at me. "Little bitch." She kicked me into a wall, hard, and was waiting to meet me on the other side, a ball of energy glowing delicately on her palm. Its deadliness belied by tranquilly cool beauty, like the being that held it. 

The raw flash of power seared the exposed flesh of my face and hands, spiraling me through the air to land heavily on the wreckage of a concession stand, unable to move. The dozen or so blasts that followed upset the precarious balance of the structure and the supports collapsed, tumbling me down the roof to land at someone's feet. 

Groaning, I opened my eyes to see a pair of very green socks. "Well, what's this?" A deceptively slender hand pulled me off of the ground by the neck of my t-shirt, holding me aloft with an iron grip. I was mesmerized, like a deer in headlights, by the ice-blue stare of those ruthless eyes. Hair darker than night and finer than silk tickled my cheek, flicked into my face by the wind. Disoriented, I wondered how such evil could be so fair. 

Even his voice was beautiful. Or would have been, if not for the total lack of inflection. "Juuhachigou, you finish that irritating blonde punk." His finger drew a line of pain down my neck, into a pressure point at the shoulder, making me twist and gasp. "I'm going to have some fun with this one." 

Quaking, I realized suddenly that I had much more to fear from him than simple death. 

"No." A desperate whisper. My voice didn't work. 

He smiled down at me. "Oh, yes, little one." 

My mind screamed in wild panic, but my limbs were numb with shock, weighed down by horror. He didn't even feel my feeble blows as he leaned in, crushing his lips down on mine, drawing blood. I was as helpless as an insect snared in a spider's web, my terror redoubling as his grip shifted, one fist knotted in my hair, and the other tearing my shirt from neck to hem-- 

I found myself caught up in a far gentler embrace, speeding away from the sprawling form of the monster who had nearly-- 

My mind shut down, and the last thing I saw over his warm, orange-clad shoulder was the unholy fury blazing in the eyes of two abominations never meant to exist, grinning evilly in dogged pursuit. 

-------------------------------------- 

I can't describe the feeling that shot through me when I saw him pick her up, and realized what he intended. Horror stopped my breath in my chest. _She's practically still a child! And it will be all my fault, for letting her get caught up in this, unprepared!_ It was too soon in her training for this. I couldn't bear the thought of his hands on her. The very idea of it flooded my veins with a white-hot rage of an intensity I'd never before experienced. Razor-sharp, it sliced through my veins, opening their entire length and flooding my whole body with liquid flame. _No!_

I moved so quickly that he never saw me coming. "Let her go, you sick bastard!" I punctuated the statement with a flying kick that sent him ass-over-teakettle into the other one. Snatching Bra's slack form out of the air, I sped away as fast as I could. There was no chance of beating them now; she was in complete shock, and worse than useless in a fight. There was no way to protect her and win. Our only hope of survival was to find somewhere to hide. 

Of course, when they tired of searching for us, they would most likely just level the entire area. I had to find the most defensible position possible. 

Unfortunately, they were far too fast, and there was no time. I only just managed to duck behind a large rock as I felt them approach. Crouching there, with her limp form cradled against my chest, I tried to memorize every detail of her lovely face. It was likely to be the last thing I ever saw, and I wanted to leave this life remembering something beautiful, not the ugly, ravaged ball of carnage and molten rock that our world had become. 

Time seemed to stop, in that instant, even though everything happened in mere seconds. I felt as though I studied each line for hours. I could see so clearly the woman she would have become, even more beautiful than Bulma-san. The royal line of Vegetasei had added a regal delicacy absent from the already stunning features of her mother. Even the close-cropped shock of blue hair did nothing to detract from it. Running my fingers through the aquamarine silk brought a lump to my throat as I remembered the day she had cut it. Even in a braid, her nearly waist-length hair was always in the way; it was constantly in her eyes and made too easy a handhold for an enemy. I told her it had to go, and she didn't hesitate, even though I knew how much she loved it. Her face gave away nothing; only her too-bright eyes betrayed what it had cost her. But she was just like me; nothing was too small a price to pay for the power to defeat the androids. We were so alike. 

With a silent prayer I folded myself around her as the world flared red, making us as small as possible, and then everything faded to black. 

-------------------------------------- 

I was thrust into awareness by a sharp, bittersweet taste on my tongue. _Senzu?_ I could barely breathe; something heavy lay across the upper half of my body. The strong smell of blood jolted me into awareness. _Gohan!_ He was dead weight upon me, nearly crushing me, but I had to swallow tears when I realized he had been sheltering me. I could see shrapnel embedded in his back. 

I gently lifted him off of me, and screamed aloud when I saw the source of the blood covering us both. His left arm had been severed just above the elbow. I quickly tore a strip off of my already ruined shirt and applied a makeshift tourniquet. He was still breathing, but barely, and was already dangerously cool from loss of blood. 

My poor mother must have nearly had a heart attack, when I showed up carrying him over my shoulder, half-naked and soaked in blood. She recovered quickly though, efficient as always, and had him stabilized by the time the doctor arrived. 

I sat with him after that, holding his hand, unable to leave. 

"Gohan...I'm so sorry..." The crushing guilt was inescapable. He had come to so much harm protecting me, because I was too weak to do it myself. I was completely useless, a disappointment to all of the training he had instilled in me. 

I dropped my head and sobbed, wanting to bury my face in his chest, but too afraid to touch anything other than the one hand he had left. "It's my fault--" 

I stopped abruptly when I felt his fingers twist free of mine and reach up to stroke my cheek, weakly. "Bra-chan...my gakusei..." His tired voice was nearly a croak. "Don't cry."   
(AN: gakusei means 'student') 

I bit my lip, trying to gain enough control to talk coherently. "But you're so...and your arm...all because of me--" 

His index finger shut me up by touching my lips. One eyebrow raised. "_You_ didn't blast it off." His brow furrowed in mock confusion. "Did you?" 

His pathetic attempt at humor almost made me start bawling again. "Baka!" I choked out. "How can you make jokes? How will you fight them now!" 

Grinning wanly, he quipped, "One arm is all I need." 

He was so strong. Nothing ever got the best of him. I tried to hide my face as the tears started again, but his grip was suddenly unbreakable as he cupped my chin and forced me to look at him. 

"Bra. Stop it. We were overmatched, and I should never have let them get that close to you. We've barely begun your training." He paused. "Of course, if you had stayed put like I told you--" 

"If I'd stayed put like you told me, you'd be a black mark on the ground!" I shouted, but his satisfied smirk told me he'd only been baiting me, to lure me out of my guilty musings. 

I gave him a watery smile, and his eyes were suddenly dark with a smoldering emotion I couldn't name. The breath caught in my throat. He drew his thumb over my cheek, nudging my face infinitesimally closer to his-- 

Abruptly, he seemed to come back to himself, drawing a ragged breath. His hand came up to tousle my hair, like a child's. Was his smile just a bit forced? Utterly confused by the surging rush in my veins, I could only stare at him. 

"Bra-chan, go to bed. Don't think you're going to get a break tomorrow because I'm stuck in this bed..." 

Numbly, I nodded. He looked so tired. "Oyasumi nasai, sensei."   
(AN: Oyasumi nasai = 'good-night', sensei = 'teacher') 

He mumbled something vaguely like a reply, eyes closed. Standing furtively in the doorway, I had to watch the rise and fall of his chest for another five long minutes before I could make myself leave. 

I realized then how much I loved him, as more than just a friend or brother. I loved him with both the raging intensity of a teenage crush, and the quiet depth of a woman's total devotion. Forced into unseasonable adulthood by the harsh life we lived, my feelings for him ran all the way to the core of my being. He'd saved me from a fate I'd never imagined, almost died defending me, and although more seriously injured himself, he gave the last senzu on the planet to me. 

Is it any wonder I fell head over heels for him? 

-------------------------------------- 

__

She's only fifteen! You're a disgrace! Ever since that night, I had been unable to stop thinking about her as more than my student. That smile...it had felt like it existed only for me. It awakened strange, totally inappropriate desires toward my almost-kid-sister. I couldn't stand to look at myself. There is a word for people like that. 

Determined to behave decently, I strove to keep all contact strictly business. But teaching inevitably requires physical demonstration, and having to touch her at all was driving me insane. I felt like such a lecher. 

One day, I snapped. Playfully, she twisted in my grip as I corrected her form and hooked a foot behind my knee, spilling us both to the ground. It was nothing we hadn't done a million times before. It was sort of a game with us, each always trying to catch the other off-guard; she had only ever managed to surprise me once before. Unfortunately, I was driven well beyond distraction at this point. 

The breath knocked out of me, I could only glare at her as she sat on my stomach, laughing. "You weren't paying attention!" The feel of her legs on either side of my waist was intolerably tempting. _You pervert!_

More roughly than I'd intended, I threw her off of me, with enough force to send her sprawling on the lawn. "Baka!" I barked. "How do you ever expect to improve, when you're not even serious about training? I was light-years beyond these simple katas at your age!" 

Not exactly true. I wasn't much further along, and I had started training a lot earlier. But I knew she would only hear the derisive scorn. She flinched as though slapped, raw hurt evident in her ocean eyes. Turning abruptly, she blasted off in the direction of the beach. 

Someone clearing their throat behind me made me jump. Wheeling around, I saw Bulma, leaning against a tree, holding a pitcher and two glasses. 

She raised one elegant blue eyebrow. "I thought you two might like some lemonade." 

She must have seen the whole thing. My cheeks flamed. "Bulma-san, I--" 

"Gohan." Her tone was serious, but she wasn't angry. "I think you should apologize to Bra. She has no idea what's bothering you." 

The thought that her _mother_ might made my blood run cold. I glanced at her in horror. She merely nodded. Burning with unbearable shame, I opened my mouth to profess my miserable apology, but before I could commence groveling, she interrupted. 

"Oh, for the love of -- Gohan, knock it off! You haven't done anything wrong." 

Nearly swallowing my tongue, I stared at her in shock. "She's _fifteen_!" 

Unfazed, she continued, "I know that you genuinely care about her. Besides, she turns sixteen this month." She leveled a deadly look at me. "I am _not_ saying that you should try anything. But sixteen isn't that far from eighteen, and I think you can wait that long." 

Glancing toward the direction her child had gone, she said softly, "I know that she cares about you. But she's young, and unsure. She doesn't know how to act, so she tries to pretend nothing has changed. It's very difficult for her." 

Turning back to me, she touched my shoulder briefly. "But not nearly as much so as it is for you. Waiting for someone to fully return your love is so hard..." Her look was almost wistful, and not directed at me. She was looking inward, toward something in the past I could only guess at. But I had a fairly good idea. 

Sighing, she said, "Gohan, I know that it will be worth it, a hundred times over, if you can just be patient." 

Then she smiled at me, and I wondered how any man, Prince or no, could have withheld even his very soul from her, had she but asked. 

-------------------------------------- 

From the window, I watched him leave, searching for my distraught daughter. Seeing him like that, so hopeful and earnest, brought tears to my eyes. He was so much like his father. 

__

Goku, I miss you. If only you had lived, perhaps none of this would have happened... 

If only...If only I could get that machine to work. I could go back and save Son-kun, and-- 

A proud, familiar face formed in my mind, cold and bereft of expression, but the glittering obsidian eyes were blazing with heat, and the finely sculpted lips were gentle where they grazed mine... 

I shook my head to clear the memory, before the remembered pain could fully take root and render me useless for the remainder of the evening. Daydreaming was pointless. I was almost sure, that even if my invention finally worked, that changing the past would only affect another future, not mine. 

__

I would never see him again, and never know if-- 

Desolate, I consoled myself with the prospect of my daughter and Goku's son. I loved him like my own, and could have asked for no greater match for my only child. Brave, strong, and yet gentle, he was the best of Goku's strength and Chichi's mind put together. I only hoped that the wait would not be too hard on him. 

As it turned out, my fervent wish was unnecessary. He would not be the one left waiting. 

-------------------------------------- 

It didn't take me long to find her. I knew exactly where she would be. She had always loved the ocean; she'd sit staring at it for hours, watching the sun pour glittering motes of light over the waves as it began its descent, the sky changing colors like a fickle debutante before a ball: red, then magenta, then violet, and indigo, and finally, black. After that, she would drink in the sparkling stars, picking out the constellations I'd shown her as a child, bright points of light against the ebony velvet of the night sky. 

She heard even my near-silent footfalls on the cliff edge. In husky voice, without turning around, she said, "Look, Gohan. They're so beautiful: the ocean and the stars." Then she turned to me, and I saw the standing tears brimming the orbs as deep as the ocean before us. Windows to a soul much older than the teenaged body it inhabited. I wished suddenly that I could somehow give her back the childhood she had missed. 

She spoke again, voice breaking. "They never change. The rest of the world crumbles apart, but they stay the same. Still beautiful, but so cold..." Her breath hitched in a sob. 

Stepping closer, I touched her shoulder with a hand that trembled slightly. "Bra-chan...I'm sorry." She was shivering, chill to the touch. I resisted the fierce impulse to take her in my arms. 

I was completely out of my element, more lost and frightened than the child Piccolo abandoned to survive alone in the wilderness at five years old. Wanting to touch her, but deathly afraid. 

Being herself, she made the decision for me, throwing herself into my chest and sobbing. For long moments I simply stroked the pale silky head and tried to figure out my next move. Quieting, she looked up at me, gifting me with a tiny, wondrous smile. It melted the ice of indecision encasing me, and I touched her face lightly, then her lips, drawing a finger slowly across the roseate curve of the bottom one. Bending slightly, I brushed them uncertainly with my own. 

And then suddenly I felt that I was the student and she the teacher. She wound her fingers through my hair and drew my mouth again to hers, with a force that brooked no opposition. Some time later, we drew apart and simply stared at each other. I sat down against the lone tree standing guard at the apex of the cliff wall, and pulled her down with me. How long we rested there, her head on my chest and our arms twined around each other, I can't remember. But at one point, we exchanged the whispered words that were, by that time, almost unnecessary to utter. 

-------------------------------------- 

The first rays of the sun touched my face with their bright fingers, and I buried my face against the warmth next to me, unwilling for some reason to awaken. After a moment, I realized that I was outside, at my favorite thinking spot, and I was not alone. 

Gohan. 

Memory of the previous night returned, and I smiled against his shirt. He loved me. I wasn't just a child to him. His soft slow breaths against my ear were like the sweetest music, and I felt a pang of loss when he pulled away, holding me at arms length. He looked at once both happy and terrified. 

"Your mother is going to kill me!" 

I started to giggle, but my amused reply was lost in the sound of an explosion. Standing at the cliff's edge, we saw the source. The androids were once again decimating South City. Flying down to investigate, we examined the wreckage, searching halfheartedly for survivors. We knew by now that there would be none. 

A blast flared out from the east, unnaturally illuminating the early dawn sky. I got the usual 'you stay here' look from my sensei as he prepared to face them yet again. 

"I'm going with you." The determination in my words brooked no room for question. 

My sensei was not fazed. "No, you're not," was the calm reply. 

"Baka! Don't be stupid!" A streetlight lay near my feet, uprooted and twisted into a pretzel. I kicked it across the ruined street and crossed my arms angrily over my chest. "You're throwing your life away, fighting them alone!" 

"Perhaps." His expression was completely closed off. Lights blazed in the distance, where they were destroying another section of the city. Breathtaking flashes of brilliant azure, gold, rose and green, like some warped version of the aurora borealis. 

"Don't do this!" I pleaded. "Let me come with you. Together, we have a better chance--" 

"Together, we still have less than one percent chance of winning." His voice was glacially indifferent, but his eyes were bottomless pools of black desolation. 

My chin lifted. "It's still a better chance." I placed a hand tentatively on his arm, corded and shaking with an emotion belied by the chill voice. "You know they will come looking for me eventually. I'd rather die fighting, with you." 

He flinched away. "There is no way--" he began, but I cut him off. 

"You know I will just follow you when you leave, anyway," I intoned flatly. "You can't afford to waste the power necessary to stop me." 

His shoulders hunched in defeat, and I knew a moment of remorse. I hated being so blunt with him, but his stubbornness left me no choice. 

"All right." The words were ice. 

Elated, I squealed in delight, "Come on, let's go!" Turning away, all attention directly fiercely at our target, I had none left to spare for the quick jab from behind that rendered me unconscious. 

-------------------------------------- 

__

I'm sorry, Bra. You're not ready, and at least one of us has to survive. You are our hope, now. You have the potential to be the strongest of us all. 

-------------------------------------- 

The irritating drip of glacially cold water on my face jerked me back into consciousness. For a moment, I wondered peevishly why I was lying out in the rain. Then-- 

Oh no, _Gohan!_

I raced around frantically, trying to find him. There was no trace of his ki anywhere, and the lack of things blowing up seemed to indicate that the monsters had left the premises. The deluge of rain assaulting the city was freezing cold, and chilled me to the bone.

Suddenly, I sensed the tiniest trace of him. Barely an echo of his usually powerful energy. Rounding a corner, I cried out in despair. 

"No!" 

He lay half-submerged in a puddle turned translucent crimson by the many wounds marring the clean lines of his body. From where I stood, he appeared to be dead. "No. _No! GOHAN!_" 

Raging loss tore through me, alongside incredulous disbelief and anger at the world that had forced me to endure so much already. Just last night, I had lain in his arms with a feeling of safety totally foreign to me, ever since complete awareness of our hopeless situation had been thrust upon me as a child. For the first time since losing that innocence, I had felt completely at peace. And now I would never have that feeling again. Never see him smile at me again. Never hold him again, or hear him tell me-- 

A wordless scream of rage tore itself from my throat, as I clenched my fists and rose off of the ground. Swirling energy surrounded me, and I pulled it in from the air around me, drawing it in, sucking it into the core of my being as if it were a life-giving substance that I desperately needed. It felt as though every nerve and synapse began to glow white-hot, and my vision shifted to a colorless blend of light and dark, etching everything into sharp relief. The broken body of my would-be lover in a water-filled crater on the ground. The scorch marks in concentric rings around him, from the blasts that had thrust him there. The beautiful, scarred face that appeared simply to be in quiet repose instead of the endless slumber of death. 

This last image pushed me over the precipice I only then realized I had been precariously balanced upon, and suddenly my power jumped ten-thousandfold times its magnitude. It felt like I was on fire, but it was part of me, and I felt no pain. The maelstrom of kinetic energy rose every hair on my body. My feral scream of fury was otherworldly even to my own ears. The bitter taste of vengeance was on my tongue and I hungered for the feel of their blood on my hands. I would bathe in the fountain of it. They would rue this day. 

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End Chapter 1 

Hope you liked it :) Email me at [sango_chan@hotmail.com][1] to be notified when new chapters are posted. 

Oh, and here is a picture of [mirai Bra][2]...   
  


   [1]: mailto:sango_chan@hotmail.com
   [2]: http://kagome.8m.com/cgi-bin/i/images/mirai_bra_ssj.jpg



	2. Sorrow

Insert standard disclaimer here. I don't own Dragonball Z or any of the characters. 

Sojourn, ch 2 

Sorrow   
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Vaulting into the air, my blood quickening and burning with the violent undercurrents of raw, unadulterated power, I felt myself being consumed alive by the white-hot fire of righteous fury, its bright tongues of flame rolling along the length of my outstretched limbs and crackling ominously in my hair. Every ounce of my being hungered for their slow, painful, delightfully messy deaths. Yet suddenly, the faint, insistent tingling sensation that had been persistently dancing around the edges of my awareness hit me with full force, flinging me back toward the ground. With a total lack of grace, I fell out of the air, landing awkwardly, as I recognized the barely discernable ki signature tickling my senses. 

_He was alive!_

I scrambled madly toward him on hands and knees, fingernails clawing runnels through the soggy earth in my haste to reach him. Fumbling at his neck with trembling fingers, I burst into tears when the faint but steady pulse of his lifeblood thrummed against them. But I wept only for a second; crying was an indulgence for which I could spare no time. Gathering his poor, broken form up in my arms, I flew toward home with all of the speed that I could muster, cutting through the wind and driving rain faster than my thoughts could race, desperate to stay ahead of the one I most wished to avoid: _What would I do, if he died?_

-------------------------------------- 

Descending from the sky, hair aflame and eyes burning iridescent aqua in an ethereally pale and expressionless face, she looked for all the world like the Angel of Death bearing a departed soul to the afterworld. Except that, as she drew closer, the tracks of anguished tears were clearly visible on each alabaster cheek, and her slim shoulders shook faintly with repressed sobs. 

Cradled like a child in her arms, she held the limp, unmoving form of my son, and the breath stilled in my chest. _No, not this...not my Gohan...he's all that I have left. Goku, he's all that I have left of you--_

Bulma's steadying arms wrapped around me as if she feared I would faint, but I felt nothing, nothing at all, only a slight jolt of resentment at the relief she stoically tried to keep from her face, from seeing that _her_ child was alive, and safe... 

She had called me, a bit frantic, early that morning, saying that Gohan and Bra had had an argument and not returned last night, and asked if I had seen either of them. I had not, and worried myself, went over to wait with her. We both knew what could very well have detained them. As much as I wished that he would stop fighting them, there was too much of his father in him. He would never give up; he was so brave. Oh, Gohan. 

Finally touching down, she took a few stumbling steps toward us. The incandescent aura around her made it difficult to look at her directly, from so close a distance. It disappeared in a flash as she powered down, and her knees almost buckled at the loss of strength, though her grip on my son never faltered. Drawing herself up, she brushed past us into the house. "Mom, hurry! I need you! He's alive, but barely!" 

Alive! Oh please, _please let him be all right..._

-------------------------------------- 

The three of us, and the lone doctor willing to trek out alone at such an unsafe hour, worked well into the night on him, suturing and wrapping and setting bone. As the only other living demi-Saiyajin, we needed my daughter's blood to save him, and she gave willingly, more than was probably safe, but he had lost such a great amount that we had to risk it. Unfortunately, the prognosis was still very bleak. 

Eventually, exhausted, the doctor left, and we all collapsed in the infirmary, Chichi sitting in numb silence next to the still, white figure on the bed, while my daughter cried out her heartbroken sorrow into my arms until sleep finally claimed her. We had done all that we possibly could. Whether or not it would be enough, only time would tell. He had numerous fractures, some compound, and not a little internal bleeding. Thankfully, all of the major arteries were intact, and his Saiyajin healing abilities gave him a fighting chance; a human would have died almost instantly from such wounds. 

I was most worried about possible brain damage. He had not regained consciousness the entire time, and there were multiple serious-looking contusions on his skull. At the very least he had a major concussion. At worst...he could be a vegetable. A mere human surely would have been. I said nothing of this to his mother or my daughter, however...I couldn't bear to take away their hope. 

So, we waited. Chichi and Bra took turns staying with him, one or the other constantly there at his side. Bra's raw, anguished loss tore at me, and I wept for her, to have found such a love and lost it so quickly. At least I had had a few months, and a child to comfort me... 

-------------------------------------- 

That first night, my mother held me like a child, after her insistence that I let her look me over as well drove me into a storm of uncontrollable weeping. I was shamefully unhurt, not even a scratch on my person, since I lay ignorantly sleeping while they brutally pummeled the life out of my beloved. Deep within, I was furious with him, raging at him in my head for that unfair sucker-punch, and his misguided sense of honor that wanted to keep me from danger, even if it meant his own demise. If he hadn't been so stubborn, he might be here now, sitting with me, instead of lying balanced on a razor's edge between life and death. His love for me almost killed him. Mercifully, sheer fatigue eventually forced me under the thought-smothering grey blanket of forgetful slumber, and for a very short time I knew no more. 

I woke in my own bed, in that cold deep bleakness when dawn is yet hours away, guilt and pain wracking my entire being, preventing any possible chance of going back to sleep. I crept silently out to the infirmary, seeking comfort in the mere sight of him. I desperately had to see him, to hear his heartbeat and know that he was still alive. As long as he still drew breath, there was hope. 

Peeking in the door, I saw Chichi collapsed in exhaustion on the couch, tangled dark hair spilling over the edge and fluttering occasionally with the stray breeze creeping in through the partially open window. Her heartbroken worry was evident even in her sleep, as a tear crept out from under the inky lashes and slowly dropped, sinking into the pillow beneath her head. There were lines in her face that I'd never noticed before, making her look suddenly much older. She shivered a little, and I silently crossed the room and closed the window, taking a blanket from the closet and covering her slight form. Gohan's mom had always been a little overbearing and opinionated, but also generous, sweet and open. I was always welcome at her home, and every time I came she would force nine kinds of dessert down my throat, since she loved to bake them, and Gohan and his grandfather didn't much care for sweets. I, on the other hand, could have eaten my body weight in sugar. 

She would have been glad, I think, to know that we were in love. Perhaps she already knew. I turned back toward him, drinking in the sight of his unusually pallid form swathed in bandages and hooked up to a wall full of machines. One to monitor his heart, another to dispense medication, a third to read brain activity. Mom never said a word about it, but we both knew that his head injuries had been serious. 

I _had_ to touch him, to feel his pulse beating reassuringly, his chest rising and falling as he breathed. Slowly, as gently as I possibly could, I levitated myself up onto the bed next to him, lowering myself by millimeters onto the blanket with a degree of control I had not known I possessed. Fortunately, it was a large bed, and I could lie next to him without actually coming in contact with his bruised and tortured body. With two fingers, I felt the pulse at his neck, and the unbearable tension I'd been holding leaked out of me as the skin beat against my fingers, proving that he was yet still alive. My hearing narrowed to just the slow sound of his breathing, shallow but even. 

I began to fall asleep, crying silently, as near to him as I could possibly get without touching and causing him pain. My control faltered, in spite of my determination, and a low, anguished sob escaped from my aching throat, followed by another. And then, wondrously, he opened his eyes, and said, vaguely, "Don't cry, Bra...", touching my cheek with his good hand, before closing them again. Later, I would wonder if I'd been dreaming. Because he never did so again, instead slipping deep into the murky, limitless depths of a coma, where I could not reach him, for all my trying. 

-------------------------------------- 

His body healed, the angry red marks fading away and leaving pale, raised scars in their place. But there was no sign of his mind. We moved his limbs and turned him, rubbing lotion into his skin, to keep his muscles supple and to prevent pressure sores. Bra became a shell of herself, walking around in a daze, gaze unfocused, forgetting to eat. The only time she seemed alive was when she trained, which she did night and day, with a vengeance. She tortured herself daily, determined, I assume, to extract her revenge on those responsible for her pain. All of her waking hours were spent either training or sitting with her beloved, talking to him for hours on end, trying to keep the desperate pining strain out of her voice. 

Chichi was no better. She had to be cajoled into eating, and refused to leave Gohan, sleeping on the couch in his room. Her weight dropped dangerously, and I began to worry about her. I asked her father to come and stay at Capsule Corp, since he was the only one who could convince her to eat or rest. 

I had my own outlet for my anger and grief; I threw every ounce of my being into developing the machine, determined to finish it ahead of schedule. It was the only way that I could make a difference. Maybe, just maybe, we could prevent all of this from ever happening. Perhaps only in an alternate time, but that was better than nothing. I could sleep at night, knowing that somewhere there was a Goku that survived, and a Yamucha, and a Krillin...and a Vegeta... 

And perhaps we could find Gero's lab, and gain some knowledge that might lead to the androids' undoing. This was my hope, my lifeline, my purpose for living, for continuing on. I toiled endlessly for hours on end in the lab, determined to make a difference, at any cost. And finally, nearly three years later, I succeeded. The machine was complete. 

-------------------------------------- 

_One more time_. I'd promised her that I'd go, and I would, but I had to try, one last time. The thought of leaving her here alone, when they still rampaged unchecked throughout what was left of civilization, tore at my insides until the whole of me felt raw and bleeding. I had to go, there was no other choice, but at the very least I would try to ensure her safety in my absence. All of their safety, for Gohan was as defenseless as a babe-in-arms at present. If they managed to breach the outer walls of Capsule Corp. and enter the stronghold, it was all over. No more Mom. No more Chichi. No more Gohan. 

My breath was the only sound that reached my ears, running though the empty streets in the sepulcherous chill only found during the dead of night at midwinter. Eerily peaceful, the powder-blanketed landscape could have, in a moment of carelessness, been mistaken for a quiet, cozy night best met with a down comforter and another log thrown on a dimly glowing hearth-fire. But any glance longer than a moment would expose the lie; The pale dusting of white than ran calf-deep in the deeper drifts had not the clean, sparkling coolness of snow. It was ash. Fine as silt but faintly sticky, it clung to my boots and coated my lungs when the wind blew the bitter stuff into my face. Wrapping a length of cloth around my nose and mouth after the coughing fit subsided, I ran on, trying to ignore the gruesome landmarks occasionally unearthed by the bitingly frigid, careless wind and etched into sharp detail by the bright, unyielding light of the white winter moon. But the unmistakable afterimage of one skeletal hand burnt itself indelibly into my memory; it still clung, even now, to another, slightly smaller one. A pair of lovers, who had died holding on to each other, refusing to be parted, even in death. My breath caught in a jagged half-sob, and I turned back, walking the few paces that spanned the distance between them and I. There were no flowers to lay; nothing new grew here. Instead, I took the scarf I wore from around my neck, and carefully tied it around the interlocked bones, taking great pains not to actually touch them. I wanted no stray wind to separate these two, who had died to be together. It seemed strangely fitting, triggering a memory of something I had read once, of a culture where a couple wishing to marry had a rope knotted around their intertwined hands, as a symbol of their union. 

My mother's plan might have been for the best. She entertained the thought that some clue might be found in the past, that could lead to the androids' defeat. But sometimes I thought that perhaps our world was simply doomed, and our duty lay in merely ensuring that the same thing would not happen again, in another time. Even should we all perish, I would readily give my life if it meant that somewhere Gohan lived, and thrived. Each day here was a small eternity of waiting, for the smallest flicker of eyelashes, or twitch of hand, that would signal his rise into consciousness. And yet the time had flown by; I could hardly believe almost three years had passed while he lay senseless. I was eighteen. 

The light dusting of ash sparkling faintly under the moonlit canopy of night made the abandoned industrial lot look bizarrely like a winter playground: a snowball-fight haven for children born in another generation, when it was commonplace to spend afternoons outside without fear of attack. I only knew about such frivolous childhood games from Gohan, who was old enough to remember them. 

Tonight, I played a much more dangerous game, and the prey I stalked would retaliate with things far more lethal than a stockpile of half-frozen snowballs potentially filled with rocks. 

My target drew closer as I silently closed the distance between us. He had blazed a swath of destruction through the lot at least twenty yards across, and the swirling ash still obscured my vision. Inexplicably, he was alone, and my heart sang with fierce joy. _Alone, I could take him!_

His arrogance precluded any thought of pursuit...he never bothered to look around him, to watch his back. Perhaps he thought that nothing on this planet could possibly harm him, but I was about to prove him wrong. 

He wasn't as careless as I thought. 

I suddenly found myself mere inches away from the coolly gorgeous face that had haunted my nightmares intermittently for the past three years, and knew then that he merely toyed with me. But I had changed, in those three years, and I realized that the intensity of the ice-pale gaze no longer had the power to strike chill, gut-wrenching fear into my bones. And, most fortuitously, the other one was nowhere to be found. The stakes were even. 

-------------------------------------- 

The girl had improved remarkably. What she lacked in power, she made up for in speed. She dodged the majority of my attacks at first, but her feints were too predictable, and soon she was staggering, fighting to stay balanced each time she regained her footing. Already she began to tire, and I lost what little interest I'd had in the fight. The other one had been irritating, but at least he'd been a little more fun, and for a minute I regretted having killed him. 

Suddenly, a violent back-kick caught me in the gut, propelling me backwards into a cement column, and I saw that it had all been an act. I laughed out loud, and took to the air. 

"Now, that's more like it." 

-------------------------------------- 

He smiled like a cat, slowly stretching his mouth into an evil, knowing grin of anticipation. He charged me, and I shifted to the side at the last millisecond and gifted him with an elbow to the back of his head, bringing my knee up to his jaw shortly thereafter. He recovered preternaturally quickly, twisting as if his bones were liquid, slamming a boot into my face and breaking my hold. We circled each other in the air momentarily, gathering our energy for the next round. Dark, sanguine blood dripped slowly from the sculpted, patrician mouth, lips still smiling faintly. 

It both pleased and disconcerted me, to see that he bled. I'd never thought of them as actually being part human. It wasn't some kind of mechanical, man-made fluid, either; we were close enough for me to detect the scent of real, living blood. Not an android, then. A cyborg. 

He wiped his mouth and frowned at the crimson smear it left on his white, perfect hand. It occurred to me suddenly that he was not pleased to see it, and not in the least because it meant he had let me get in a decent hit. He didn't like to see his own blood. Why? 

_A reminder._

Gero couldn't have made these monsters out of nothing, if they were truly cyborgs...and androids didn't bleed. He would have had to have human hosts, a core system to build his design upon. Was it possible then, that he'd taken his subjects unwillingly, changing them against their will into something all but human? They would have been 'programmed', as well...but did some deeply buried part of him still remember? 

Shock and grudging, horribly misplaced and involuntary pity froze me immobile, just for an instant, but it was more than long enough for him to send me spiraling down into an ash drift. Curling myself tightly into a ball, I managed to reduce the amount of damage I took from the shredded metal and other debris buried at the bottom. Pride pulling me to my feet, I stared up at him and abruptly wanted very much to eradicate the mocking smile once again beaming down at me from his face. 

He spoke before I could. "Where's your lover, girl?" 

My aura flared involuntarily as Gohan's broken form flashed before my eyes, and I heard myself growl, low in my throat. Inflamed, I spat back, "Where's yours?" 

His eyebrows drew down slightly. "She is _not_ my lover; she's my sister. And her constant bitching was grating on my nerves." 

I laughed mirthlessly. "What could she possibly have to complain about, when the entire planet trembles at your fingertips? Did she break a nail?" 

"My thoughts exactly. We have everything." The smug arrogance in his tone made me want to rip out his vocal cords and garrote him with them. 

Instead I found myself replying, and wondering why the hell we were having this reasonably calm discourse instead of continuing to beat the crap out of each other. "Although, someday, you _will_ destroy everything on this planet. Then what? You're still human enough that you can't survive the cold and oxygenless void of space. Then you'll really be bored." 

He looked at me blankly, and I realized that the thought had never occurred to him, that one day they would run out of things to blast into oblivion. "You will be stuck here, on barren, empty rock. A great ball of nothingness. Will you build things to fill it again? I think not; It takes much more to create than destroy, and you will have completely lost that part of yourselves by then -- who are you? Who were you? Do you even know?" 

The rest of my heated tirade was lost as his closed fist contacted my mouth. "Shut up!" 

"You bleed," I said. "You're still mortal, barely...though you wish it were otherwise." His expression boiled with sudden rage, and I launched myself toward him. _"You can still die!"_

-------------------------------------- 

Her words stirred up lost images I'd wanted never to see again. Impressions and feelings of loss and an unbearable, engulfing, sorrowful rage. A nameless woman's featureless face and soft arms, a scrap of music, a child's drawing. 

_Damn it!_ What was she doing to me?! Those things belonged to someone else, a man long dead. Not me. 

Furiously, as we battled, I sought to regain the cold void of total detachment, a task usually made easier by remembering that I was more metal than man. No longer was I subject to their weaknesses, their puny morals and pointless emotions. I was freed from that prison of flesh that held all of them captive, slaves to their own mortality. 

But this time, I could not banish the unwelcome sense of _feeling_, could not attain the calm emptiness of a perfectly controlled mind. Tides of raw emotion crashed over me, and worse than the pain itself was my complete inability to pinpoint the source. I was drowning in a viscous sea of thick, black fog, with tendrils of something far too tangible to be mist, piercing their way into my flesh, clouding my vision and pouring down my throat as I opened my mouth to scream. What was it? Why did it torment me? _Go away!_

I shook my head to clear it, and the blackness receeded enough that I could see again, though it did not disappear completely, dancing around the edge of my vision, taunting me. My opponent stared back at me, golden hair glowing like a small sun in the darkness, eyes glinting coldly. _Bitch! This is your doing!_ With a gutteral scream of rage I dove for her throat. 

-------------------------------------- 

He seemed beyond words, so angry that his movements became jerky and uncontrolled, as his fury took him completely over. Never before had I seen him display anything other than mild irritation, amusement, or boredom. Now, consumed by a berserker's rage, his fists shook faintly with repressed anger and a slight flush actually appeared on his normally pale face. It seemed that the human part of him preempted control of his brain when strong emotion manifested itself, as it did now. His reflexes no longer supernaturally quick to react, I began to gain the advantage, though his brute strength and endurance did not flag. I was winning. 

For what seemed like hours, we battered each other, though he seemed to accrue most of the damage. I began to tire slightly, but knew in a moment of uncanny insight that his storm of fury was wearing him down, and elation brought renewed strength to my limbs. With a final spinning kick, I sent him to the ground and met him there, flickering down in an instant, reappearing a breath away from him, pinning him to the ground, two fingers jabbing into the soft flesh under his jaw, hard enough to feel his pulse beat beneath them, my ki hissing and sparking around my fingertips as I prepared to unleash the blast that would take his head off. Sitting on his chest, I stared down at him and smiled a triumphant farewell-- 

and stopped. His face was again utterly expressionless, but deep within the endless pools of blue I caught a spark of...resignation. Acceptance. And suddenly the living warmth of his skin and the beating heart beneath me undermined my resolve. But it had to be done. Perhaps he had not chosen this path, but it was the only way to stop the killing. Unbidden, words sprang to my lips. "I'm sorry--" 

But before I could release the dormant power, a bright, blazing heat flayed the first layers of skin from my back and sent me tumbling. The world spun crazily as I twisted through the air, away from the blurred figure of the deceptively slight female that had come out of nowhere. I could not even draw breath before another blast struck, but I threw a ball of power in retaliation at her feet, sending a shower of shattered razor-edged rock swirling around her. She laughed, and instantly was upon me, slamming me into the ground painfully. Blow after blow rained down upon me, until I could no longer ward them off. My last vestige of strength fled, leaving me utterly bereft and unable to move. I was finished. I could only stare at the blonde newcomer and hate her silently, as I watched her mock him, waiting for one of them to strike the final blow. 

His systems repaired themselves quickly. Already he looked as though he'd taken only minimal abuse. He strode over and lifted me up by the hair, the sharp pain and what remained of my girlish vanity forcing me to use the last scrap of my energy, levitating enough to prevent him from pulling it all out at the roots. If I were going to die, and of that I had no doubt, at least I wouldn't die bald. 

Completely drained of power, I closed my eyes resolutely and willed an apology to my mother, to Gohan. I wondered if my father would be waiting for me...what I would say if he were... 

"Why, girl?" The crystalline-clear voice pierced through my pain-clouded brain and jolted my eyes open with its unfamiliar note of...what? Wonder? He was once again coolly distant, utterly tranquil and detached. Only the faint line running between his eyebrows and the corners of the too-perfect mouth twisting down, ever so slightly, conveyed any expression. 

"Why do you keep fighting us, when you know you cannot win? He was the stronger, and we killed him." But his narrowed eyes asked, _Why did you hesitate?_

The ice-bitch looked up from studying her flawlessly manicured nails. "Juunanagou, let's go...kill her already." Then, looking back down, she frowned, and I imagined that I must have chipped the immaculate polish. The thought pleased me immensely. 

I didn't mention that he was still alive. Better for him that they think he's already dead. Chikyuu's last hope now was that he somehow recover, once I was gone. "I fight because I must. There is no one else, and some things are worth any price." 

For long moments he continued to stare at me, holding me aloft. At last he realized that no further answer was forthcoming, and gave an elegant half-shrug. "No matter." His other hand encircled my neck, and began to heat the air around it, until my skin blistered and blackened, and the acrid scent of my own burning flesh choked me. The last thing I heard, before the world disappeared in a blinding flash that faded into a bloody haze of pain was, "It will be interesting to see if she survives this..." 

-------------------------------------- 

I did. 

My mother must have braved the ruined streets alone to find me, and even knowing that I would have died otherwise, I still managed to muster up furious anger at her for risking herself so blatantly. Unrepentant, she refused to hear any of it, saying that her life was worth nothing at the cost of mine, and that she would do it again, a hundred times. Completely lacking any fighting skills or physical strength, my mother was the bravest person I had ever met. 

In time, I recovered fully, and the final preparations were made for my journey. I spent that last night in his arms, and no one objected. It was unbearably ironic, that were he hale and conscious, the very idea of us innocently sharing a bed would have raised indignant squawks of offended propriety from both of our mothers. Instead, both said their good-nights and retired, my mother kissing me on the forehead, and Chichi touching Gohan's face lightly as she left. I would have given anything for him to be awake, even if I wasn't allowed to hold his hand until I was thirty. I wasn't even sure that he was here anymore; it felt as though I sat next to an empty shell. 

But he was still warm, and the faint taste of his unique ki signature hung in the air around me, reminding me that part of him, at least, still lay next to me. I lay back, stretching out alongside of him, and tried not to think about the morning that loomed before me. I trusted my mother; she was an amazing scientist and a genius; but this was a feat not attempted before, and there was no guarantee that it would work, that I wouldn't blow up, or get lost, or somehow miscalculate the energy needed to return. I was terrified that I would never see any of them again. That they would be left alone to face the end. 

Eventually his burning warmth penetrated my fear-chilled limbs and I stopped trembling, simply lying there and being content to just...be. There was no tomorrow or yesterday; for the moment I could pretend that I simply lay in bed with my sleeping...boyfriend? Lover? Soulmate? Teacher? What was I supposed to call him? I had no doubt that we would have married someday...but we had never even 'dated'. There was no label for my relationship with him. He was just Gohan. My Gohan. The resolute steadiness of his strong heartbeat eventually lulled me into slumber. 

-------------------------------------- 

The cloying scent of hair dye hung heavily in my nostrils as I awoke, and I wrinkled my nose. Not unpleasant, but not good, either. It had refused to go away, even after shampooing. My mother insisted that I not reveal who I was, since it might prevent my birth from ever occurring. But I was nearly a dead ringer for her younger self, she said, not totally identical, but similar enough that there would be no mistaking whose daughter I was. Add to that the fact that I might need to show my Saiyajin fighting abilities...and it was going to cause problems, either way. Chichi had snickered rudely and said that her younger self was more likely to accuse Goku and Bulma of having an affair, than to think Bulma and Vegeta might ever hook up. Then she and my mom laughed uproariously over the image of the diminutive dark-haired woman pounding Goku into the ground for an affair he hadn't had yet. 

Padding sleepily over to the bathroom, I gazed at the mirror and even I didn't really recognize myself. Under a shock of red hair, my face peered back out at me with eyes turned bright peridot green by the painless ocular injection my mother had given me the night before. Contacts were too easy to lose in a fight, and I hated having something in my eyes anyway. The artificial pigment would last for 30 days or so. My mother walked in while I was still trying to come to terms with the hair, though. That was permanent, and I'd have to grow it out. 

"I look like a clown." 

She laughed, and ruffled the already sleep-tussled hair. "No, sweetie, it's a very nice color on you. Fiery. It suits your temper." She studied me carefully, until I squirmed uncomfortably under the intensity of her gaze. Then she sighed and smoothed down my hair, trying in vain to tame it. "You still look too much like me, but it will have to do." Leveling a serious gaze at me, she said, "You're only supposed to meet up with Goku, anyway. Contact with the others should be avoided if at all possible." 

I didn't answer. She was right and I knew it...but the desire to meet my father was so overwhelming that I didn't trust myself to speak. 

Then she turned away, and in a low, careful tone, said "If you do see him...don't expect too much." The undercurrent of pain in the husky timbre of her voice forestalled any questions I might have asked, to clarify that cryptic remark. 

After a hasty shower and a breakfast I couldn't even taste, I kissed Gohan one last time on the forehead and hugged both of our mothers good-bye. Climbing into the machine, I spotted one last touch my mother had added after I'd gone to bed last night, a name she'd christened it with as I slept. It echoed through my mind endlessly as I blasted into the boundless blue of a sky that had no end, weighing me down with the full import of all that I carried upon my shoulders-- 

'Hope'. 

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End Chapter 2 

Sorry that this took so long. There is so much more to be written for this story, stay tuned...email me if you'd like to be notified when updates are posted :) 

~Sango 


	3. Realization

Insert standard disclaimer here. I don't own Dragonball Z or any of the characters. 

Sojourn, ch 3   
Realization 

-------------------------------------- 

_So beautiful..._ The untouched world of the past stretched out before me in all directions, painted in vivid, breathing color. The bright cerulean sky darkened to lapis lazuli at the edges, the darker hue bleeding into the paler one like a premature wash of watercolor applied before the previous layer was allowed time enough to dry. Immense, sun-scorched cliffs rose to the heavens on either side of me, banded in countless variations of ochre red, rich sienna brown, and beige, the gradations made visible over centuries of time by the patiently determined efforts of wind and water. 

No hint of pale ash rode the late summer wind, which carried a hint of chill from the mountains and the promise of cooler days to come along with the heady scent of late-blooming flora. No smothering grey clouds clotted the skies, no choking black smoke spiraled out of the distant cities. A photograph could hardly do it justice, but I wished suddenly that I'd brought a camera anyway, to bring back even the smallest piece of this lost beauty for my mother. 

The muscles in my shoulders bunched unconsciously, my body reacting to the slowly approaching malevolent power levels even as my mind wandered off. So, this was it then...Frieza and his father were coming. If I really concentrated I could feel Goku as well, but his faint ki was much further away... 

_He isn't going to make it._

Damn! I had promised that I wouldn't interfere, that I wouldn't disturb the fragile fabric of time any more than was absolutely necessary. Indecision held me immobile while a heated internal debate raged in my head. My mother's disapproval was a tangible weight pressing my booted feet into the ground. Irritably, I mentally shrugged it off and took to the air. If this wasn't 'absolutely necessary', I didn't know what was. 

In the distance, a bright disc of carnelian flame hurtled toward the earth -- the Cold ship, burning through the atmosphere. From what I gathered, even both of them together posed no threat to me, but still I reached absently for the sword at my back, absorbing cool steel reassurance from the brief contact as I watched the ship descend. I took a final breath as it passed overhead, gathering my resolve, and took off in pursuit. 

The vessel had carved a careless path straight through the surrounding rock, coming to a halt in a small, flat, grassless valley. The color of the cliffs in this area deepened to almost violet, powdery and pale on the weathered surface from the tireless assault of the elements, and a faintly sparkling indigo where the ship's passage had laid deep gashes in it, gouging and breaking off and exposing the hidden inner layers to open air. I took my time, sitting cross-legged at a vantage point downwind that afforded me a clear view of them and made it unlikely that they would spot me immediately. And indeed, they disembarked carelessly, overconfident and sure that nothing on this inferior planet could possibly threaten their existence. Neither figure even cast a precursory glance around them to scope out their surroundings. My Saiyajin ears caught a hint of their conversation, carried along by the breeze. 

"...Won't he be surprised, when he returns to find all his little friends scattered in bloody pieces on the ground?" Laughter, cruel and mocking, followed the words. 

The others actually _were_ nearby, I could sense them now, though they were all suppressing their ki for the moment. I had to admire their bravery; not one of them stood a chance of survival against these two, and more than one of them had already died once at Frieza's hands. 

_I guess this is my cue._

Light as a feather and silent as a stalking panther, I descended before them. "I'm afraid you won't be killing anyone, Frieza." Two sets of eyebrows raised in my direction, in the one second of shocked silence that elapsed before they both broke again into amused laugher. I imagine I was less than intimidating, a slight red-haired girl standing alone against them. I shrugged, not really caring if they decided to take me seriously; the end result would be the same. 

"_You_ have come to stop us, little girl?" snickered the smaller lizard. "Are the men of Chikyuu such cowards that they send their girl-children out to fight?" 

A bit of annoyance seeped into my haze of nonchalant apathy, against my will. Why did everyone always think that girls couldn't fight? 

The larger figure gave a mock sniff of indignation. "How insulting." He waved a bored hand at his underlings. "Get rid of her." 

_Let's see if you're still insulted after I kill you, you big stupid-looking bastard._ I carved his men up in a matter of seconds, violently quashing down the horrified guilt that blossomed in the pit of my stomach, reminding me that I was passing the point of no return, that my soul was now steeped in their blood. I had never slain anyone before. _They'll kill everyone if I don't. They'll kill everyone if I don't._ It was a mantra I repeated endlessly to myself as I worked, drowning out any other accusing voices until my mind retreated into the detached, calming void of total concentration, the world narrowing to one thought, one goal. 

I allowed myself a moment of satisfaction at the look on their faces, as they suddenly found themselves completely bereft of subordinates. Keeping my gaze away from the carnage with a supreme effort of will, I walked slowly toward them, a small smile on my face. It was good, so good, to face an enemy that threatened what I loved and know that this time, without a doubt _I_ was the stronger! I couldn't contain my glee, it flooded my veins with a rolling ebullience that left me almost giddy. 

"What's the matter, boys? Afraid of having your ass handed to you by a girl?" I taunted, warming up to my role. Both scowled at me with nearly identical looks of barely repressed rage. My eyes took in the cybernetic limbs and ocular implant worn by Frieza. He must have gotten very lucky, managing to survive at all if Goku had messed him up that badly. "Hey Frieza, I see you've had some work done." I tilted my head, as if contemplating something. "I must say it's an improvement..." 

He launched himself at me, as I'd known he would. As he approached, I released my aura, flaring into Super. "The guy who did that, he didn't look anything like this, did he?" I was rewarded by his sudden stop, terror flickering across his features before he could mask it. 

"Super Saiyajin," he muttered. To his credit, he stood his ground, swiftly cloaking himself in arrogant assurance. "No matter. I'm much stronger now; neither he nor you will stand a chance, bitch." 

I indulged him for a moment, effortlessly dodging his increasingly furious attacks as I tried to rally my courage. Part of me was shocked by the bloodlust within, and quailed inwardly at the merciless killing I'd already done...but the rest of me knew that I could afford no mercy, and none would have been afforded me or my people. I'd already faltered once, before the kill, and it had cost me the victory. Once again, I had to do what no one else could, it was up to me, and if I couldn't stomach it we would all die. Better to have two more deaths on my conscience than billions. At least Frieza and his father didn't pretend to look human. _And he killed your father,_ I reminded myself. It was enough. Coolly and methodically, I sliced him up into tiny pieces and incinerated what remained. 

And then there were two. 

I faced Cold alone on a narrow ledge. I felt fear radiating from him in waves as I approached, but no hint of it touched his face. I only wanted it to be over. I could already feel the reaction to so much violence beginning to set in, the slight tremor in my hands, the rising nausea. If I were going to lose my breakfast I wanted to get it over with before the spectators arrived. I sensed them nearby, watching from behind a ridge to the south. 

"I see that you are truly powerful," he rumbled. "What would you say, if I offered to set you on the throne, heir to the Cold Empire?" I kept walking, ignoring the pointless question. He must have realized that I had no interest in anything he could offer, and changed tactics, trying to gain an advantage that would let him get out of this alive. "Pathetic little chit. I bet you aren't so great without that sword of yours. Why don't you fight me without the blade, or are you too afraid--" 

He shut up as I cleaved his head from his shoulders. I could have beaten him minus the blade, blindfolded and with my hands tied behind my back, but I had nothing to prove to him. As the two parts of him hit the ground, I turned and retched, visibly shaking from the aftershock. Levitating down to a bare patch of ground near where I'd sensed the others, I tried to regather my thoughts, to plan out my next move, but instead I sank to the ground and heaved again, until nothing came up. I was still on my knees when they got there. I glanced up to see a semicircle of faces, some curious, some awed, and one with a look of disgust, presumably at my weak stomach. My cheeks burned with shame as I drew myself unsteadily to my feet. 

_Was that him?_ I knew his face as soon as I saw it; I couldn't say how or why. Right now it looked like it wanted to rip my head off. Storming over to me, he demanded, "Who the hell are you? You _can't_ be Saiyajin!" He paced around me like a stalking panther, growling, "There are only two of us left, two and a half if you count that brat of Kakarot's, and there sure as hell weren't any females left living, Frieza made sure of that!" 

The raging undercurrent of malice and envy in his low voice shivered my spine, and I had to steel myself not to flinch from his heated glare. We were of a height so I simply stared back at him, unable, for the moment, to speak. "Um." 

"Vegeta! Back off! You're scaring her, and you really should be thanking her, you ungrateful lout." A fluffy cloud of blue hair floated toward me, my mother's face beneath it. I could only stare in amazement, and try to keep a straight face. It was nearly impossible, the stress had me stretched taught as a bowstring, waiting to let an arrow fly, and the built up tension begged to be released, laughter bubbling up in my throat. _Oh, was I going to have a talk with her when I got back._

She stepped between us, and poked a finger into his chest until he stepped back, scowling even more furiously, if that were possible. This drew my attention to the fact that he was wearing a _pink_ shirt, and I got the distinct impression that he wasn't all that happy about it. That was more than I could handle. I laughed until I nearly cried, while they all gaped at me like I was an idiot. With some effort, I managed to rein in the slightly hysterical giggles and gasp an apology, "I'm sorry...please forgive me." I bowed. "Please, I'm here to see Goku, he'll be joining us shortly. Would you like to wait with me?" There were some surprised murmurs. I unencapsulated a mini-fridge and offered them some drinks, popping the top on the first thing I grabbed, desperate to rid my mouth of the lingering foul taste of blood-rage and sickness. 

"Do you know my father?" The smallest figure stepped up, and I had to catch my breath suddenly as the ebullient joy threatened to roll over into stormy tears. 

Gohan. Only eight, or perhaps nine, but there was no mistaking who he was. I wanted to catch him up in my arms and hug him, screaming, "You're alive!", but managed to rein in the insane impulse and smile at him instead. "No, Gohan, he's a friend of a friend. I have a message for him, though." 

Without thinking, I handed him an orange soda. I couldn't stand the fake citrusy taste, but he loved the horrid stuff. Slightly surprised, he grinned. "Hey, thanks!" 

Even his smile was the same, on this little face, smooth and as yet unblemished by the scars that were so familiar to me. I wanted desperately to clasp it between my hands and cover every inch with kisses, to wrap my arms tightly around him and never let go. Somehow, I managed to tear my gaze away, before they all began to think it odd that I'd been staring so intently and with such open longing at him, as though he were my long-lost child. He laughed then, at something one of the others said, and I consoled myself with the music of it dancing in my ears: mellifluous and warm, innocent and pure, an unadulterated sound of joy that not even the horrors of the world we lived in had ever been able to mar or tarnish. The pitch was higher and more childlike, but all else was identical to the laugh I grew up with. I'd almost forgotten just how much I'd missed it, for three long years, wondering if I'd ever hear it again -- and now I was, but not in the way I'd imagined, not in the way I'd most wanted, and hot tears sprung unbidden to my eyes from the bittersweet irony of it. 

And then without warning the tangled confusion of emotion drained suddenly out of me, my knees threatening to buckle. I had to sit down quickly on a nearby rock, large and flat and warmed by the sun. I closed my eyes and stretched out, trying not to squirm under the piercing gaze of the fierce black eyes that never left me. Someone sat next to me...my mother. Her presence was calming even if she didn't know who I was. 

Eventually, curiosity won out over weariness, and I opened my eyes to study the faces around me. My gaze lingered longest on my father, trying to memorize every detail, searching for a hint of myself in his features. 

"What the hell are you staring at?" 

Was he always such an ass? Irritated, I wanted to ask him who he was to talk, but instead counted to ten and reminded myself that from what I'd heard he was a very proud man and I'd likely rubbed salt in an open wound by going Super Saiyajin right in front of him. And I really, really didn't want to fight with him. I managed a reluctant "Sorry." 

He harrumphed and turned away. 

"Don't mind him." Bulma patted my arm and winked at me. "So, what's your name?" It was so odd, to be sitting here gazing at my mom when she was barely older than me. Her clear blue gaze was frank and inquisitive, openly taking my measure, but friendly nonetheless. 

I gave her an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry, I really can't tell you." 

She looked a little disappointed, but masked it well. "Can you tell me where you're from?" 

I shook my head. 

"What about how old you are? Do you work for my father?" Her sharp eyes hadn't missed the Capsule Corp logo on my jacket, and I cursed myself inwardly for forgetting about it, and my mother as well. I couldn't believe we'd made such a glaring oversight. 

"Not exactly," I managed. "But I'm eighteen." 

"Oh." And she smiled warmly at me, in spite of her obvious curiosity. I knew that it must have been eating her alive; my mother never liked to be in the dark about something, but she was polite enough to let it drop, and to chide the others for pressing me further. Vegeta sat well apart from everyone else, ignoring us all as though he'd chosen independently of the rest of us to spend the day sitting out in the middle of nowhere. 

Finally, when the tension was just short of forcing me to pull my hair out one strand at a time, Goku arrived, quite literally 'with a bang'. We all stood at the edge of the smoking crater to watch him emerge from the ship, the others poorly masking furtive glances of surprise in my direction. He was dressed very strangely, but I hardly noticed; I was too enthralled in staring at this man who was Gohan's father. Gohan had been all rippling muscle and tight sinew, but though he matched this man in height he had yet to have grown into his father's powerful breadth of chest, shoulder and back. Their faces weren't identical, but the resemblance was striking enough that my body reacted instinctively to him anyway, bringing a slight blush to my cheeks. 

_Great first impression, Bra. You might as well just swoon into a puddle of goo at his feet like some silly vapid teenager. Have you forgotten why you're here?_

I stepped forward. "Son Goku?" I asked formally, though there was no doubt in my mind that the legend stood here before me, in the flesh. 

He eyed me levelly, his frank gaze of appraisal openly taking my measure. "So it was you then, that power I felt?" 

"Yes." 

He cracked a wide, toothy grin, "I bet Frieza wasn't happy to get beaten by a girl!" 

The tension crumbled as everyone started laughing and welcoming back their long-absent friend. Everyone, that is, except for Vegeta, who growled angrily at Goku's quip and stood apart from the rest with his arms crossed forebodingly across his chest. 

My hopes of any kind of pleasant interaction with my father plummeted at the blazing look in his eyes, the seamlessly shielded expression on his face telling me plainly that there was less than no chance of that. I had unintentionally shamed him three times over: by being more powerful than he, at a younger age, and then by being a female on top of that. No one else cared aside from him, but this proud man could see my abilities as nothing else other than a slap in the face, a humiliating blow to his vaunted pride. 

I hadn't known until just that moment how much I wanted him to be proud of me. True, I had often wondered as I trained with Gohan if the father I'd never known could see me from where he was, if he was proud of the fighter that his daughter had sacrificed so much to become. Every time I reached my limits and pushed beyond them, I wondered, _Did he see?_ I'd always thought of it as just the wistful fancy of a fatherless child. But now the real thing stood before me, living flesh and blood and proud unyielding fire. Nothing had prepared me for the actuality of him. Goku may have towered over him in physical height, but my father was every inch a prince, and his untamed presence filled the air around him. He was all iron will and tempered steel. Anything he set his mind to, he would have. 

Ruefully, I forced myself to get to the business at hand. "Goku-san, may I speak with you?" 

Goku raised his eyebrows. "Sure. Over there?" 

Over the protests of the others, we flew to a spot still in sight of the rest but well out of earshot. We stood staring at each other a moment as I collected my scattered thoughts, Goku politely waiting for me to speak. 

Well, no use beating around the bush, I supposed. I flared into Super Saiyajin, smiling at the familiar rolling warmth of bright flamelets of power trailing over my skin. I stated the obvious. "I'm a Super Saiyajin, too." 

"Woah! You look just like me!" At my slightly affronted look he added lamely, "Er, except female, of course. Heh." 

I had to see him in action, to know that this costly trip through time might make a difference. "Please power up." 

He shrugged, and did so. "Okay--" 

As he finished the transformation I drew the sword and lunged at him in one quicksilver-swift motion, halting a hair's breadth from his head. He didn't flinch a millimeter. 

Frustrated, I blurted, "Aren't you going to dodge?!" 

He smirked a little. "I could tell that you weren't serious." 

"I'm serious now," I growled, a little petulantly. 

"Okay." 

This time, when I moved, he countered so quickly I almost missed the motion with my eyes. With only two extended fingers, he effortlessly parried each sweep of my blade, until I laughed in delight and powered down. 

"You're amazing," I said. 

"You too." he returned. 

I took a deep breath. "I can power up to Super because I'm half Saiyajin, like Gohan. Vegeta is my father." 

Goku's mouth dropped open. "Vegeta is a dad? He never told us he had a kid!" Then he frowned, visibly trying to do the math in his head. 

"No, Goku-san. He doesn't yet. I'm from the future." 

Understandably he looked dubious, but there was pretty strong demi-Saiyajin evidence staring him in the face, red hair glowing golden and unwavering turquoise eyes meeting his own. "Um." 

"Let me explain a bit more." 

-------------------------------------- 

I watched them fight from across the gorge, barely able to follow the lightning-quick dance of attack and counterattack, and only with a supreme effort of will did I manage to rein in my raging anger and refrain from losing any more face than I already had in front of those other weaklings. That strange woman dared to glance at me once with a hint of what might have been concern in her eyes, though she wisely turned away quickly at my inflamed snarl of rage. I still hadn't decided whether her presence here indicated staunch bravery or sheer stupidity. I was leaning toward the latter. 

This newcomer made my blood boil, standing nonchalantly in front of my greatest enemy and decimating him and his father with less exertion than I would use to squash a bothersome bug. She continued to irritate me, this mere chit who had been no more than a mewling babe when I was conquering entire solar systems, by being a Super Saiyajin before even the age or twenty, well before a Saiyajin usually comes into his or her full power...meaning that she would be more powerful still. Worse even than that, she was female. The Saiyajin no Ouji had been made many times to swallow his pride before the heir to the Cold Empire, and had been handed a devastating loss by a third-class nothing who should have been drowned at birth, but he had never before had to concede _anything_ to a female. 

I cursed her silently in my head, uttering every venomous epithet I knew while my fingernails drew blood where they pierced my palms, the only visible manifestation of my fury. Bad enough that I had to contend with that endlessly irritating Kakarot, now I would also be haunted continuously by the glowing image of this girl, lissome and fleet, always running one step ahead of me. 

-------------------------------------- 

I scratched my head absently as she told me her story, almost too incredible to be true. The devastated look in her eyes as she tonelessly spoke of the world's decline into total chaos removed any doubt I might have had, though. That, and the fact that she was very obviously Saiyajin. 

I took the vial that she offered, still absorbing all that she had said. Vegeta's daughter. Androids. A heart virus. Everyone dying, except for her and Gohan and their mothers. 

Gohan-- 

"What about my son?" I asked forcefully. "Why didn't he come with you?" 

She flinched, and the cool exterior she'd been trying to maintain crumbled into dust. Tears filled her eyes, and her voice was husky when she said, "Gohan couldn't come. His last fight with them messed him up pretty bad." 

I knew suddenly that this poor girl had been much more than my son's student. I placed a hand on her shoulder. "Gohan's a tough one. He'll make it." 

She looked up at me, smiling through her tears, and it was easy to see how she'd captured my son's heart. "I hope so," was all that she said, a world of emotion poured into three small words. 

She looked so familiar..."Your mother," I broke in suddenly. "Do I know her?" 

"Yes," she said slowly. "My mother is--" 

"Bulma. Oh my gosh," I gasped, as I fell over laughing. Poor Vegeta. 

Her eyes widened almost comically. "How did you know?" 

"I grew up with her. Except for the color of your hair and eyes, you're a carbon copy of her at that age." That said, I went back to laughing uncontrollably for a minute. _Oh wow, those two together. I wonder how the world survived it._

"Ahem." She stared down at me, unamused. 

"Heh. Sorry. But how in the world did _that_ happen? We all thought she'd marry Yamucha..." 

"Mom won't really talk about it...I think that she still misses him, and it makes her sad. All I know is that she and Yamucha will break up shortly, and that she and my father will be together for a little while, until the androids come." 

It still blew my mind. "Woah. So your name is...?" 

"Bra." She grabbed my hand. "Goku-san. You can't tell them, or I might never be." Her pale eyes were solemn. 

I grinned at her. "Got it. You can count on us, Bra. We'll beat them." 

-------------------------------------- 

I wanted to hug him then, on impulse, so strongly did he radiate quiet confidence and a steadying calm that promised to take care of everything. It had been missing in my life for so long, ever since Gohan left to walk alone in a faraway place that I couldn't touch. But it would have been one more log on the blazing flame of my father's enmity, so I didn't. Instead, I waved good-bye to all of them and climbed into the ship as fast as possible, suddenly wanting to be far away from the black-eyed fury of the one figure not waving back. 

I tried not to cry, as I left. I at least managed to rein in the tears until I was sure that they couldn't see them from the ground. My father hated the sight of me. But...maybe next time. Maybe something in my mother would get to him, and in three years when I returned he would be different, just a little, just enough that he would fill this aching void in my heart that I had only just now realized the true depths of. I knew before I came that I'd want _something_ from him, some kind of recognition or acceptance, but I hadn't known until the instant of meeting him just how _much_ I'd want it. Loneliness and an agonized yearning ate me alive, the arms I wrapped desperately around myself doing nothing to abate the onslaught of emotion. The return trip was cold and unnerving, unsettling visions dancing across the glass, and I shut my eyes tightly against them, waiting with every muscle tensed for it to be over. 

She was waiting for me, as I'd known she would be, tearing out of the house at a dead run with Chichi and her father a careful distance behind. Wordlessly, she opened her arms to me, the heartbroken desolation in her blue eyes gone pale grey answering the question I couldn't even draw breath to ask. 

I fell out of the machine into her embrace, my despair mirroring her own as it sunk in that all of our risk and effort had been in vain, at least for us. With Gohan still lying in a sleep only one step removed from death, _my_ reality was all that I could spare any emotion for. The idea of a peaceful future for another timeline was no comfort at all. We'd done everything we could, _we'd tried so hard_, and it still wasn't enough. Everyone was still dead, and the beautiful smile I'd foolishly allowed myself to imagine seeing when I returned would never again shine upon me, trapped forever behind lips stilled in endless slumber. 

Hope is what hurts. Letting yourself believe that maybe your dreams have a chance to come true. That's what pain really is. 

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End Chapter 3 

Yes, I know, Bad Sango, taking forever to update *again*. I really am sorry. I just want everything to be perfect and I'm a slow writer in the best of times, and molasses running uphill in winter when work keeps me as busy as it has been. Rest assured though that I will see this fic through to the end, and I will be happy to email anyone that asks when I post new chapters. Hope you enjoyed this one :) 

~Sango (sango_chan@hotmail.com) 


	4. Abeyance

Insert standard disclaimer here. I don't own Dragonball Z or any of the characters. 

Sojourn, ch 4   
Abeyance 

-------------------------------------- 

I sang as I worked, though not for pleasure, and none of my heart touched it. The quiet melody poured absently from my throat, faultless in pitch but miserably without soul. I broke the dim, heavy silence only because my mother maintained that the sound of my voice would reach him, and I had lost the will to speak. I could no longer bear to talk to him as though at any moment he would wake and smile, rolling into a stretch that would end with him lying on his side, dark eyes gazing into mine as he replied. Gently, I washed and dried his slack, unresisting limbs, now almost painfully thin and enervated from long unuse. It was as though his body lay slowly dying, the soul already long absent. With no small effort I shook off that morose thought; entertaining such bitter musings brought nothing other than a deep, numbing depression, and I needed to stay focused. I couldn't afford to let despair rule me now. 

Finished with that task, I rubbed oil into his skin to keep muscle supple and stimulate sluggish circulation. Luxuries like body lotion and scented oils were becoming nearly impossible to find; I was using plain old olive oil. Gohan might smell like a salad when I was done, but it served its purpose well enough. His thrumming pulse under my fingertips reminded me that there was yet still life in his body, and while there was that, I had hope. Its bright wings carried me somehow through this intolerable waiting, eight endless months of sitting around helplessly while the machine charged again. My life shrunk in upon itself, condensing just to training, eating, and sitting by his side. 

The song trailed off as I brooded, leaning back against the wall, hands falling limply in my lap. I stared blankly into nothing for a long moment, until finally I noticed the gooseflesh rising on Gohan's uncovered skin. Hurriedly I pulled the blankets back up over him, cursing at myself for the lapse even as I noted with cold detachment my utter lack of reaction to his nakedness. It still felt faintly wrong to see him so exposed, my fallen teacher, the lover I had only ever chastely kissed before the androids laid him low. But modesty had long ago fallen by the wayside, felled by necessity. His mother and grandfather couldn't be expected to shoulder the burden of all of his care...and doing these small things for him was the only closeness I had anymore. I sat heavily down on the bed next to him and rubbed a tiny bit of balm over his dry lips, kissing them gently. 

My heart stopped -- Did he smile? No, it had only been the dance of lambent shadow on his face, misinterpreted by my weary eyes. I rubbed at them tiredly, running my hands through my unkempt hair, the ends of which were still bright red. It was late, and I could no longer keep my eyes open. Snuffing the candle, I curled up next to him, drawing another blanket over myself and pillowing my heavy head on his sunken chest. Twining my fingers through his unresponsive ones, I sighed softly as my thoughts began to drift away, as near to content as I could be in those circumstances. For sometimes, sleeping beside him just so, I dreamed... 

-------------------------------------- 

The dream is long and endless. It has no beginning that I can remember, and there seems to be no end soon approaching. I am utterly alone, but mostly unaware of the solitude; my world is total grey oblivion, an infinite vacuum that swallows all sound, light and thought. Those short snatches of time when the fog recedes are filled with the unintelligible murmuring of familiar voices, but there is no time to ponder their meaning before the void sucks me under yet again. 

Ah, but sometimes, in the silent dark _she_ comes, her presence an anchor for a breath of coherent thought. I can't seem to speak to her or rouse her from slumber, but I can at least hold her to my heart until the dream steals her again away. 

-------------------------------------- 

_Where is it?_

The only sound that greeted me in reply was the slow, continuous dripping of water tricking down the ruination of mortar and stone. The deep of night rendered the charred wreckage into indistinct looming shapes under the moonless sky -- indistinct for a human, anyway. For my highly augmented eyesight, midnight was as clear as high noon, and for the first time I wished it were otherwise. A sense of sudden, cloying dread rang like a clarion of warning though my head, a desperate tocsin heralding imminent doom. There was something here _I did not want to see._ No memory of this place sprang to mind, but the dogged impression of familiarity was unshakable. I had been here before... 

Of course I had; We had leveled this entire quarter in minutes, at some point. It was only one of many, after all...But no, I had been here before that. 

My heart lurched suddenly. _There._

Half of a doorway still stood, though the door itself had been torn from the hinges and likely incinerated. One wall remained upright in the center of the carnage, burnt pieces of wallpaper curling in strips on the surface, the color and pattern now totally unidentifiable. 

It had been green. 

It had been green, and I had been punished once when I was very young, for peeling it off to see what was underneath. I-- 

Blood-red lightning lanced through my head, ripping away the thought without care for what else was lost. In breathless agony, I pressed my fists to my temples in a vain attempt to hold it together. I shouldn't have come here; what point was there? But since the day that cursed girl had stayed her hand with sudden unfathomable pity behind her eyes, I had been unable to recapture the detached ennui that had sustained me for so long. Her heated words haunted me night and day, relentlessly awakening an insatiable, desperate yearning for knowledge of who I had been and the life now forever lost to me. The tortured unrest and unbearable waking dreams of partial remembrance drove me outside in the middle of countless nights, searching endlessly for something I couldn't name. 

But other than that one lone wall, there was nothing left to answer my questions, no clue to be found in what was now mostly just ash and crumbled stone. I put out a hand against it to steady myself, the friable surface falling away to dust beneath my palm. 

_Wait_. Cruel in its flawless clarity, my vision caught an infinitesimal flash of crimson, a tiny red spark against the gloom. Nestled in the ash was a single earring, a plain cabochon ruby set on a gold post, its twin nowhere to be found. Taunting wisps of memory flickered in its scarlet depths, of such a gem on a woman's ear, her steadying shoulder soft against my cheek as her quiet voice soothed away some unseen dream-spawned fright. 

Had I still been human I might have wept at the unbelievably bitter irony. If only she had foreseen those monsters who _would_ eventually come, the kinds of horror that reduced the bogeyman of childhood nightmare to just a pale, harmless shade. If only she had known what would become of the children she rocked to sleep -- Had she seen her own death in our eyes, when the end came? _Were we laughing all the while?_

But as it were, I was not human, and tears were not a thing Gero thought worthwhile to build into his creations, though my eyes burned for the lack. I simply removed the earrings I had been wearing and placed the ruby in my left earlobe. Juuhachi would be sure to comment, but I really didn't care. 

Turning to leave, one last unwelcome image came unbidden to my mind: The same woman, standing at the threshold, her face blurred by my fragmented memory but not enough to hide the frustrated hurt and sorrow, the pain in her voice carrying clearly over the pleading cry I could not recall. My last words to her had been something cruel, and I had never been able to take them back, as Gero had found us easy prey that night. 

An animal scream tore out of my throat, agonized and primal, and in an involuntary shock of blinding power I incinerated the entire block, the shockwave resonating for miles but taking none of my pain with it. I took no joy in destruction anymore, but what else was there? 

-------------------------------------- 

Against a dark sky only beginning to hint at dawn, the bright ball of flame blazed with blinding radiance, greeting me ominously as I stepped outside to begin my matutinal training. It made no sense; it had surely been years since they had destroyed anything in this area, as everything for miles in that direction had long been turned to barren nothingness. Fear ran cold fingers down my spine at the sudden realization of the attack's possible significance. Were they searching for the Capsule Corporation bunker? Hunting us down in a sick game of cat-and-mouse? 

Confronting them directly was not an option. I couldn't afford to get killed, not now when I was needed back in the past. Our world was doomed, surely, but I would stop them from wreaking the same havoc in that other, unbelievably elysian time...or I would die trying. Only after that task was done could I risk battle with the cyborgs. For now, I had to bide my time. I wasn't yet strong enough to take them both, and since that last fight I had never seen them alone. Just the same, I had to see what was going on; I couldn't return to the past knowing that the only loved ones left to me were methodically being stalked. I damped down my ki and flew closer, landing well before I was visible to their long-range sight and walking the rest of the way silent as a panther. 

It was not hard to find him, though he neither moved nor spoke, and had no discernable ki. He stood dead center in the middle of the blast radius, smoke curling around his still form, utterly still and inexplicably alone. 

I stood for a long time watching him, wondering what the hell he was doing. The sun slowly rose in the sky, but he remained totally motionless. Was he broken? Had Gero's perfect creation malfunctioned? 

Finally, as he was alone and I could stand no more suspense, I stepped out of the shadows, deliberately making enough noise to be sure that he heard my footfalls, flaring defensively into Super at the last. He turned around slowly, as though either I posed no threat...or he just no longer cared. Frosted blue eyes flashed iridescent aqua as they met my light, the sun reflecting off of a glacier, bright and hard and as bone-chilling cold as a night in the grave. 

"You." His voice was completely inflectionless, nearly dead. I stood loosely in a ready stance, awaiting the inevitable attack, but it never came. His gaze unfocused from mine, turning inward toward something I could not see. In the semi-darkness the flickering black of his hair seemed to absorb the light, reflecting none of it back. 

As he seemed disinclined to speak, I asked coolly, "Have you run out of things to break? Are you now reduced to revisiting earlier sites of destruction, combing the rubble for something left standing to assuage your boredom?" 

-------------------------------------- 

Boredom, she says. She knows _nothing_ of boredom. We need only a very little sleep to replenish the small percentage of our bodies that is still human, leaving far too many empty hours to fill. The large-scale destruction was an inevitable result of our making; channeling that much power in your hands leaves no room for wayward thought or feeling, and the humans made a fitting target. We hated them, because they still were what we could never be again. 

She frowned at my lack of reaction, slowly releasing the power she had gathered, though each taut sinew stayed warily coiled to spring. Her fierce aquamarine eyes remained narrowed into glittering slits. As the energy seeped into the atmosphere her hair floated down gradually around her shoulders, darkening from pale glowing gold into a strange gradation of hue, the early sun turning the strands into flickering lines of cyan light whose ends blazed like molten copper. 

She was rather delicate-looking for a fighter, even more so than my sister. The clean lines of her form were almost patrician, each curving lineament the work of an artist without parallel. Unlike my sister, she dressed simply and without jewelry, her untamed hair falling where it would. The utter lack of adornment only emphasized the beauty of her features and the natural grace in her lithely muscled limbs. 

I had no appetite that morning for verbal fencing; I wanted no more of her words stirring unwanted memories into wakefulness. Neither could I summon the desire to fight, not here. I searched mentally for the quickest way to make her leave. 

Assuming an indolent, suggestive smirk, I purred, "Are you then offering me different sport?" 

-------------------------------------- 

A thrill of fear reminded me then of what had nearly transpired the first time I encountered him, that day with Gohan. But I was no child anymore, and had nearly killed him the last time we clashed. I stood my ground as he advanced, unafraid. His smile widened, and he stopped with only a handspan of air between us. With a supreme effort of will I stood there unmoving while every instinct screamed at me to flee, meeting his gaze stonily. 

Abruptly, I sensed it: a hairline crack shooting through his seamless armor, a fault running clear through the core that if struck at the just right place might cause the entirety to shatter into nothingness. 

He wanted me to leave; this was a calculated effort to force me away. When I made no move to back down, I could see it in his eyes. His still-human heart lay suddenly vulnerable before me. Here then was a way I could break him, could I but find it. 

It was possible that I could have beaten him in a fight, though not guaranteed. But something told me he was near a breaking point, that if I could only push him the right way the destruction would stop. Perhaps it was the world of pain in his eyes, impossible to conceal at such close proximity. He seemed to be consumed by some deep inner sorrow, and utterly weary of the continuous carnage and devastation. 

If I could somehow seize upon that and twist it to my use it would obviate the need to kill him, and no more people would die, at least by his hands. Seeing clearly through the mask he assumed, I no longer hungered for his death. There had been too much killing already, and I saw that he was at last fully aware of what he had been, and was now, and that living with the full knowledge of that might be worse than death. If I could somehow reach out and turn him fully away from the path he'd been on, my mother and Gohan would be at least somewhat safer in my absence... 

His pain was tangible now, standing so close, and it came to me suddenly what I could do. A scintilla of hope flared in my breast; mere seconds had passed since he'd spoken, time enough for a breath, and a prayer... 

I closed the distance between us without hesitation, and kissed the cool lips with a compassion that was not feigned. His agonized turmoil and self-hatred tore at me, and was not my own father once a killer of millions? 

There was nothing sexual about the gesture; it was a brief touch of empathy, a voluntary physical contact meant to unnerve him more than any blow could. And indeed he _was_ greatly affected, a wild look on his face, fingers splayed in shock. Did the quick glint of tears touch that icy stare? Terror came hard on its heels, and then rage-- 

With numbing, limb-jarring force he blasted me some distance away into the ash-covered rubble, streaking recklessly into the sky without even a backward glance. Only time would reveal the effect of my reckless gambit. 

-------------------------------------- 

I could still feel the heat of her lips, blazing their brand indelibly into my skin, searing her mark on me. Heat had flowed in waves from her faintly glowing skin, drawn by the dictates of physics into the relative coolness of my cybernetic flesh. 

How she had taken me wholly unawares. A meeting of lips without coercion, a deliberate touch of her own volition. Her reasons were completely unfathomable to me, her motives unclear, but there had been no guile in her startling blue eyes; at that moment there was no animosity in them at all. Most confounding was the hint of lenity in the kiss. How she could not hate me, I did not know. 

The fearless look in her eyes as she struck would not leave me. She was so fierce, vibrant and alive: all that I wanted still to be. I hated her even as I began to realize that I wanted her. 

------------------- 

Though I waited uneasily for some kind of fallout, the last few months passed uneventfully. At long last the machine was charged, and I left within the hour of it reaching full capacity. Nervous excitement quickened my blood as I set the controls for the last day of prelapsarian Earth. My mother double-checked my work, kissing me farewell one last time and skillfully hiding her pained worry from me as she disembarked, though I did not miss the way she leaned heavily on the arm Chichi wrapped around her. 

Stepping out again into that green halcyon peace, I allowed myself one long moment of clean, sweet air, the caress of sunlight on my cheek, the joy of seeing green things growing. I sucked in from nature the calm I needed to center myself before plunging into the storm that lay ahead. 

I was not prepared for what I found, in the sky above the mountains. Goku was alarmingly absent, and the androids -- for that is what they undoubtedly were, they had no readable ki -- were utterly unrecognizable to me. _What the hell was going on?_

Piccolo was the first to sense my arrival, shouting out, "Bra is here!" to the surprise of me and everyone else. If he had made the connection, obviously no one else had. I doggedly searched the only face whose reaction I ached to see, and found nothing. Surprise, yes, but nothing beyond. No pride, no joy, not even contempt. Nothing. 

He was angry at me soon enough, as I hurriedly explained that I had never seen these strange androids before. Piccolo and the others took the quixotic turn of events as an ominous sign of possible doom, but Vegeta seemed to blame the entirety of it upon me. I was more than a bit miffed, but before I would be afforded the opportunity to air my grievances, the air around us filled with light and all of my concentration was spent on keeping my bearings as the subsequent rush of searing wind buffeted me like a child's toy. 

Finally collecting my wits, I saw two things at once: a ship bearing the unmistakable logo of my mother's company plummeted toward the earth, and my father spared it not even a glance. My heart sank even as I dove into action. Did he care so little, after all? 

I tore open the hull with my bare hands, heedless of the damage to my skin. My mother's eyes were squinched shut, her body curled protectively around the squalling baby that must have been me. Severing the safety harness with a razor-thin blast of ki, I grabbed them to me and dove for the hole I'd made, at very nearly the last possible second before impact. 

Even as I touched down, Bulma frantically began screaming for her baby, sobbing in relief at finding her unharmed. _She always thought of me first._ A lump formed in my throat as she looked up at me and smiled. "Bra. Oh, my beautiful girl." She touched my face lightly with one slim hand. "Look at you, so grown up and pretty," she sighed in wonder. 

I placed my hand over hers and winked at her. "I got good genes. From one side, anyway," I added furiously. Even I could feel the steel in my gaze as it turned upward, to the figure that still paid the three of us no mind. My mother looked up with me and then quickly down again, but not before I saw the tears that clung to her downcast lashes. Rage blossomed in my breast as it had not done since the day I had found Gohan nearly dead in the rain. My feral growl shocked the younger me into renewed tears and echoed in my ears as I blasted off toward my father. 

He pointedly ignored me, still combing the area below with his sharp gaze, intent only on his prey. He continued to do so until I planted myself in his face, our noses nearly touching. "Why didn't you save them?" Those who knew me would recognize that my voice had gone too quiet, sinking into an unnatural calm that always preceded an explosive storm of fury. 

On the surface, his face revealed only mild annoyance that I stood between him and his target. In his eyes I was no threat at all, a mere fly to be swatted away. My fists shook with the urge not to shove him with all of my might. My eyes narrowed, and the growl was back in my throat, waiting to be unleashed. He visibly dismissed me, and made to turn away-- 

"Answer me!" I shouted, and the tone of command in my voice shocked even me. 

His eyes widened very slightly then, reflecting my image back at me from the onyx mirrors of their expressionless depths, and I knew suddenly that he was fighting to see me as myself and not my mother -- for in our rage our body language and expressions were identical. The phrase 'whirling blue fury' danced into my mind inexplicably, and I saw that it was true; the completely restored blue of my hair whipped around my face furiously, and my eyes flashed the blue-violet hue of a fire's heart, of lightning striking scorched earth. 

He shrugged with practiced ambivalence, though the motion seemed slightly forced. "What do I care what happens to that careless woman and her worthless girl-child?" His voice was perfectly composed. "She brought that danger upon herself, and if the child were worth keeping it would have survived the fall regardless." 

_Worthless._ I would pay him back for that comment, in spades. "Ah, but if you cared nothing for her, there wouldn't likely be a child, would there?" I wielded my voice against him with the same degree of skill, the dulcet tones blandly innocuous. "And was it not the worthless girl-child who killed the monster you could not?" 

I smiled a savage cheshire grin at his thunderous expression, knowing that a hard-won point had been scored in our verbal fencing. Finally, the mask had slipped, revealing raw unbridled fury beneath. Good. 

He tensed as if to spring at me, than roared and said only, "Girl, I have no time to deal with insolent whelps! Even now, he escapes!" 

He blasted away before I could reply, and I knew then that my mother was not the only one who would rush headlong into danger for the thrill of it, heedless of the risk. Or rather, in his mind there was no room for risk, so inflated with arrogance was it. And miserable bastard or not, he was my father and I was not yet ready for him to die. And so with one last glance at my mother's upturned face, I followed. 

He tried to lose me a few times, and I am not sure if his inability to do so pleased or angered him. I didn't much care; I had a job to do. For though I wasn't sure how I felt about him, the pleading of my mother's bright blue eyes had held no hesitation. I didn't need telepathy to read their anxious supplication: _Please, keep him alive_. 

--------------------------------------   
End Chapter 4 

Yay, finally finished, and I only had to stay up all night to do it...thanks for your patience! :) 

I created a yahoo discussion group for my work, btw. It seemed like a good idea at the time...   
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sango_fics/ 


	5. Chaos

Sojourn, chapter 5   
Chaos 

-------------------------------------- 

_Father of mine   
Tell me where have you been   
You know I just closed my eyes   
My whole world disappeared..._

-------------------------------------- 

Today was only going from bad to worse. The feeling of impending chaos was growing by an order of magnitude, like a swiftly expanding ball of snow tearing down a mountainside, with me squarely in its path, utterly powerless to stop it. 

"Don't do it!" I jumped ahead to cut him off, arms flung wide, desperate fingertips stretching outward in supplication. _Please. It's complete madness..._

I might have been an insect, crawling in his way, for all the notice he gave. "Move out of the way, girl, or I'll blast you to Hell along with them." His expression did not flicker. 

_Gee, Dad, I love you, too._ The air shimmered around his upraised palm, invisible power radiating from the fastidiously white glove like heat from an opened oven, and I was not fool enough to doubt him. 

Forced to concede defeat, I stepped aside to give him a clear shot at the impenetrable steel doors of Gero's lab, but not before pausing to give him the finger. 

I shouldn't have bothered; I'd have gotten more reaction from the cold grey steel. Repressed terror made me irritable, settling like an immovable ball of ice in my gut. Was he ever going to believe anything I said? Why did no one else seem to feel the smothering dread that threatened to cripple me whenever I stood still for too long? 

_Because you're the only one who fully comprehends what's about to happen here, girl. You're the only one who's seen it._ Reminding myself of this offered little cheer. I finally stopped shivering as I drew in enough power to raise my body temperature, gathering the swirling warmth of my ki around me like a blanket. No need for stealth now, with the blazing beacon of my powered-up father in front of us. Tien and Krillin followed suit, exchanging wary looks. Piccolo did not move at all. 

I took one last longing look at the clear, smokeless sky, azure blue against the jagged, snow-crested peaks on all sides of this lonely place. Drinking in a wind not yet tasting of ash, I waited for him to start the battle that would end everything. Cut directly into the rock, the portal loomed menacingly over us, tall and austere, as foreboding as the gates of the Hell he'd carelessly mentioned. A line from one of my mother's books pierced me suddenly: 

_Abandon hope, all ye who enter here..._

My breath stopped as my father loosed the blast, the gleam of raw power shining through his eyes, leaking from his fingertips, rolling off of him in radiant waves. He was nearly maddened with it, a container filled to the brim -- no, _overflowing_ -- with more power than he'd yet touched in his lifetime. Without the prospect of fighting Goku to use as an outlet, he had no way to release all of the energy he'd channeled into himself. He was not leaving here without a battle; I doubted that he even could. 

Two pairs of eyes became visible at the threshold, glowing vermillion as their vision effortlessly pierced the darkness to view us while we stood blind and vulnerable. Fortifying my ki shield, I found myself still holding my breath and forced my lungs to inhale, knowing that I'd be useless if I passed out. The faces around me wore nearly identical expressions of barely mastered fear, all except for Vegeta, who instead looked merely _impatient_. Did his unbelievable pride allow no room at all for concern? 

"Are you coming out, or not?" he called. "I'm waiting." As though he were the only one here, or at least the only one that mattered. I snorted softly, the others standing mutely behind me, except for an almost imperceptible sound of disgust from the Namek. 

"So anxious to die, little man?" the sibilant, familiar voice snaked out of the gloom, a moment before its owner materialized. The same silky fall of black framed his face in the darkness, blending seamlessly with it and making the cobalt blue of his eyes glow unnaturally bright. Entranced, I didn't even glance at his sister, a paler shadow of him. 

Vegeta bristled visibly at the insult to his stature, like a cat doused with water, and I almost rolled my eyes. Was he always so easy to bait? Juunanagou's responding laugh was cold and utterly inhuman. Juuhachi wore no expression at all. 

Intrigued in spite of myself, I took a step forward and looked into the icy mechanical gaze for some hint of the torn and tormented cyborg I'd left behind in my time, but this Juunanagou only met my stare with bland indifference and a hint of the leer he'd worn when I first met his other self. He looked me up and down with deliberate slowness, and I growled in irritation, the morbid fascination suddenly vanishing. Was it my imagination, or was there a faint snarl of anger from one of the men on my left? From Vegeta? Definitely not. 

I finally noticed what I should have seen immediately -- _another_ one of them, inactivated, still contained in its pod. I panicked; How would we ever beat _three_ of them? I was sure that all of our extra training would not make up for the increase in their number. I had to try and destroy it now, before they activated it. But... 

"Where is Gero?" I asked. 

Juuhachigou brightened, laughing caustically. "We had a difference of opinion." Her smile was beautiful and terrible. "Let's just say the place is under new management." She laughed uproariously again at her own joke. I noticed absurdly that her nails were bare. Gero hadn't let her paint them. Poor baby. 

That last unknown variable accounted for, I powered up in an instant, touching the nexus of power in my core with a savage joy that not even these circumstances could temper. The others stared warily at me, and even Vegeta's glare registered a spark of dim surprise. In my head I heard: _What the hell does she think she's doing? This is my--_

I blocked him out. To them I said only, "Not for long," and then the mountain exploded. 

-------------------------------------- 

This is not what I needed. This little chit is as irritating as her mother but far more meddlesome, with not insignificant fighting power to back up her idiotic stance. My estimation of her abilities rose a grudging notch; Her blast was impressive, and I was somewhat surprised to see that it didn't even manage to scratch my prey. Indeed, it served merely as a distraction for them to take flight, and I was incensed that they dared to run away from me. 

"Get back here!" I shouted, and took off in pursuit-- 

or would have, but for the body that planted itself in front of me. "No," she cried. "You can't!" Her eyes were wide, desperate, and I hated her weakness, the fear that I saw there. No child of mine would openly display such cowardice. She must have read something from my face, because the pleading blue of her gaze rapidly iced over into cold grey steel. Her lowered voice was as hard as flint. "Be reasonable! You _saw_ my attack, it was my strongest blast, and it didn't even faze them! You can't take them on alone! Let's wait until Goku recovers--" 

Did she not know to whom she spoke? "I am the Saiyajin no Ouji! I will not shy from battle, and I do _not_ need the help of an unranked commoner! Stop interfering!" I shouted, and punctuated the statement with a fist to her solar plexus, a blow she should have been prepared for, another mark of her unfitness for real warfare. She doubled over, starving for air, and held me for another valuable second with the incredulous hurt shining through crystal blue eyes too much like another's. It felt for an instant as though I'd just hit _her_, and an unfamiliar emotion rose unpleasantly in my chest. _She isn't Bulma!_ I shouted mentally, shaking off the feeling, leaving it and her behind as I blasted away in haste. 

-------------------------------------- 

After he left, I floated face-down for a long moment, mesmerized by the crimson droplets falling steadily in time with my heartbeat, out from my lips to meet the ground far below, furious with myself for caring that he'd hit me. 

"Bra? You okay?" 

I rotated in mid-air to meet the concerned gaze of Krillin. "I always knew Vegeta was an ass," he said simply, "but I never thought he'd hit his own kid. Especially his--" 

He broke off, and I knew he'd almost said _especially his daughter_, but since he hadn't, I forgave him. 

Tien was more terse. "We should go." Piccolo only looked at me, arms crossed. 

Left with no other choice, I ran the back of my hand across my mouth and flew in the direction Vegeta had gone, the other three taking flight at my heels. I couldn't give up now. Whatever might happen to my lousy father, I still cared about the fate of this world. 

The first thing I saw upon our arrival at the scene was Juuhachigou flinging a bloodied Vegeta ass-over-teakettle into a rocky cliff wall, leaving a sizeable crater, and for a crazed second I wasn't sure whether to be happy or upset about that. I fiercely quelled the absurd urge to cheer, but some part of me was actually glad that, of the three of them, they'd chosen the female to take my father on. And there _were_ three now, my blast hadn't harmed the pod at all. They must have activated it in the time it had taken me to shake off Vegeta's blow. He was strange-looking, to me: huge, massively-muscled, with a bright ridge of hair sticking straight out of his skull and the same ice-colored eyes as the others. 

As soon as he saw us, Juunanagou touched off and drifted in our direction. I floated to meet him, leaving the guys slightly behind on either flank. I was somewhat discomfited that the third android appeared to take no interest in the entire scene, staring instead out at the empty sky. 

"Nice of you to join the party, sweetie," he said casually. "But Juuhachi appears to really be enjoying herself, and I don't think she'd appreciate the interruption." He leaned in closer, and I forced myself not to recoil from the stranger wearing a face that had become so familiar to me, a face I'd almost understood. "You and your friends stay out of it, and I'll let you watch...but if you join the fun, so will I, and you'll all lose." 

When he put it like that, I knew we had no choice but to sit out. For now. But what kind of game were they playing? Wasn't it all going to degenerate into a fatal melee anyway? 

I shrugged, and crossed my legs to sit seemingly at ease in the air, putting on the appearance of settling in to watch. "Got any popcorn?" I asked under my breath, but he heard me and laughed. 

"You're a funny girl," he said appreciatively, that glint in his eyes again. "And a looker. I might be persuaded keep you around." The tone of his voice implied that I should be greatly pleased. 

I pretended not to hear the mountains of innuendo woven into that statement. I managed to watch the fight without expression, but inside my mind was racing. Was there a way out of this? 

It came to me then, that I just might have other, more subtle weapons at my disposal. "Juunanagou," I began. 

His head turned automatically, irritation flaring dangerously in his eyes at the distraction. "What?" 

"You don't have to do this," I said, point-blank. "You and your sister might have been under Gero's command, but you were never _his_." 

"What the hell are you talking about?" All pretense of pleasantry had dropped from his manner now. 

I willed him to listen. "You're still human! He stole, mechanically augmented, and mentally re-programmed the two of you, but you were never his creations! You have a choice!" 

He reeled back from me, gripping his head between his hands, and I realized in horror that in trying to get him to think outside his programming I was causing him severe pain. "Shut up!" he screamed at me, and Krillen and Tien moved closer, new fear behind their eyes. Piccolo turned his head from the fight below. 

My hopes plummeted; Gero's influence was yet too strong in his mind, and there would be no swaying them from their course. Even so, looking at the eyes that were for an instant those of a caged, tortured animal, I pitied him. 

Unable to direct his pain and outrage at any target but me, he advanced with an insane red glow limning the ice blue eyes, and I figured the free-for-all was about to start. I readied myself against his inevitable attack, wary of making the first move. So many things weren't what they were supposed to be this time around, I reminded myself. As hard as it was, I had to quit thinking about him as an enemy I'd faced many times before, and be prepared for anything. Piccolo suddenly shouted, "Vegeta cannot win! Her power supply is limitless!" 

It was at that moment that Juuhachi viciously broke my father's arm, and I went immediately on the offensive; I knew from the look on her face that she was not going to stop until she'd killed him. She wasn't playing anymore. The audible crack of bone forced brutally beyond its limits echoed inside my head, but I was far more sickened by the quicksilver dart of satisfaction that flared in my breast at the nauseating sound. _Finally,_ he would see that I had been right about them, about the very real danger they posed, even to the great Saiyajin no Ouji. 

His body twisting in pain, the black fury of his gaze flickered from his opponent only briefly, too quickly for anyone but me to notice, but more than long enough for the uncontained blaze of raging anger to sear into my skin. I had been right, he finally realized, and he hated me all the more for it. It was all that I could do not to flinch from the unseen blow. I had only been trying to save his life. Part of me still wished never to have courted my father's animosity, but it had been too late for that the day I arrived three years ago, and at this point it was not him I strove to please. He could hate me as he would, but for my mother I would use any tactic at hand to keep him alive. 

The best one I could come up with at the moment was a full-on charge. I'd figured from the beginning that it was going to turn out like this. I took pleasure in at least knowing that my unwelcome intervention would royally piss him off. A chorus of surprised swearing followed me down from my companions as they rushed after me, but did they really think there was any other option at that point? Idiots. 

The bitch broke my sword with her bare arm, and the nagging feeling of wrongness finally solidified into a coherent thought. _They were too strong._ They weren't supposed to be this strong. In my time I was powerful enough to take on either one of them alone, and Vegeta was easily as strong as I. What the hell was going on? Was Fate so determined to kill us all off that it had compensated thus for my trouble to come back and warn them? 

It was somewhat fitting that my own father took me out of that fight, his body thrown as a projectile into me with incredible force. I daresay he didn't mind. 

-------------------------------------- 

My first wistful thought upon swimming back out of the clinging, heavy oblivion was that the sky was too flawlessly blue for a day that would herald the doom of the earth. Right after that, I wondered if one ever grew accustomed to the bitter taste of senzu. Tears choked my throat as I remembered the last one I'd eaten, and who had given it to me. 

I sat numbly in a dazed state of melancholic apathy as Vegeta left, and then Piccolo, after shouting something I barely heard. _Gohan, I really wish you were here._

Krillin grabbed my hand, trying to pull me up, but I'm heavier than I look, and he didn't make it. "Hey. C'mon, Bra." He and Tien looked profoundly uncomfortable when I lifted my head to look at him through tear-filled eyes. "We, ah, have to get to Goku." 

I sniffed, trying not to think of Gohan anymore. "Yeah. I'm okay. Let's go." 

As we raced toward Goku's house, the rushing wind roaring in our ears, my thoughts had plenty of time to echo in my head. What had I done wrong? Why were they so much stronger? What could we do now? 

"Are they evil?" Krillin asked me suddenly, as we slowed and descended toward the small dwelling that was our destination. I nearly fell out of the sky at the unusual question. I looked over at him, his face unusually troubled and serious. He touched the back of his hand to his lips absently. 

"Krillin, I--" I sighed, stopping to hover in the air, so that I wouldn't have to shout into the wind. "Are they inherently evil? No. They were human once, stolen and made into what they are now without their consent. Gero was an evil bastard. In my time..." I stopped. 

"Yeah?" There was a weird expression on his face, a mix of horror...and hope? 

"In my time," I continued, "Juunanangou and I have a kind of understanding. He knows what he is now, and what he used to be, and if he ever manages to come to terms with that and the horrible things he's done, I think there might be some kind of life for him, yet. But Juuhachi...she has _become_ the android, utterly forgotten and forsaken the human heart she once had, and I don't think she is at all sane anymore. I don't doubt that I will have to kill her," I said softly, and was surprised to find that I could feel regret, after all that she had done. 

"But right now," he spoke quickly, "They haven't done anything yet, have they?" 

"No, not yet," I agreed. "I would like more than anything to find a way to stop them without killing them, and be able to tell Juunana about it when I get back. They don't deserve what has happened to them, any more than the rest of the world did." 

I stopped dead just outside the door. "But Krillin," I said, "If I can't reach them, I _will_ kill them before I ever let them do to this place what they did to my world. You have no idea what it was like. I can't forget that." 

----------------------------------------------- 

After moving Goku, we got a call from my mom, asking us to meet her. She'd somehow found my time machine -- except it wasn't mine, because mine was still encapsulated in my pocket. The malignant feeling of wrongness inside me kept growing, well-fed by my imagination. 

Gohan found the moss-covered ship first, and indeed, it _was_ my machine, or at least what my machine would have looked like had it been sitting abandoned in the wilderness for a long period of time. Even the inscription was the same, and upon seeing I missed my mother suddenly, painfully, even though she was technically standing right next to me. I jumped in and accessed the controls. It had been here four years, to be exact. There was a weird shell on the seat, which I tossed to my mother. We found another odd, slimy cocoon-thing not too far away. 

I was a warrior, the only champion of my planet, and I had faced androids and my own death many times over. But in some ways I was still a typical girl, and I got really creeped out by bugs. I couldn't believe Mom picked up that disgusting carapace so casually. Ugh. 

"Mom, ew!" 

"Bra, it's just a discarded shell," she said matter-of-factly. "I'm more concerned with what used to be in it", she continued, "and you should be, too, since it appears to have come in _your_ time machine..." 

Yeah. How in the hell did that happen? 

It finally clicked. _This is why things are different._ Somehow. This machine, _my_ time machine, has somehow been sitting here for four years now. Something else has traveled along on a different time line, altering everything. I racked my brain, but I couldn't figure out what. 

How could I have anticipated Cell? 

When Piccolo later explained to everyone about Cell's origin and how he came to be back in the past, cold fingers brushed my heart. _At our moment of triumph, after so much sacrifice, he had killed me right in front of her_. The painful chill filling my gut must have been what the old expression meant by "someone walking on my grave". He had murdered me to steal the machine. My poor mother, at last having her daughter back from the past and the androids laid low, only to have me struck down right before her eyes. 

I felt nothing at all when Krillin and I broke back into the lab and killed the Cell-still-in-the-past, a helpless embryo-thing. I only knew cool, utter resolution that it must be done, and a faint ray of hope in the certainty that at least now, whatever else happened, I would not die by his hand. 

Now, the only thing left was to train. I had to reach the next level, and for that, I would need an opponent. I had not sparred with another fighter in years, and my methods of self-teaching were limited. I went looking for my father. 

----------------------------------------------- 

Basking in the alpenglow, he stood defiantly against the painted sky on the lonely outcropping of rock and flared furiously into Super: an impressive if slightly melodramatic display of power. He was a man of extremes, my father; it was all or nothing with him. Prideful to a fault, he also seemed relentlessly driven by a fierce determination that could almost be termed passionate. For the first time I began to see what it was that my mother might have seen in him -- What would it have been like for her, being the sole target of so much unbridled energy, once he had decided that _she_ was what he wanted? I still couldn't figure out his blatant coldness to her now, but perhaps in a fit of mercurial pique he decided that he had not wanted her after all. _Or perhaps it was the want of her that scared him._

He seemed to have no such indecision about me, though; I never saw him even glance at my baby self, and he ignored me now just as pointedly. If not for the blazing enmity cast in my direction that I felt radiating from him in waves, I would have thought him completely unaware of my existence. Apparently he was still determined never to forgive me for showing him up so long ago, or for having been born a girl in the first place. _That_ galled me to no end; what _was_ it about men like him, thinking that only sons were worthy to fight alongside them? Had I not _decimated_ Frieza and Cold? He hated me both for being only a 'weak' daughter, but also for refuting his misogyny before his eyes and damaging his pride in the process! He was totally blind to the irrationality of the it. Only to Goku did he show respect, and that very begrudgingly. He respected Juuhachigou now, having been forced into it. A shattered humurus will do that, I suppose. 

I staunchly ignored the part of me that was only, after all, a desperate young girl presented with a miraculous chance to know her dead father. He had no interest in that, and vying for his affection would only lead to heartache that I had no time for, not with the androids harrowing our every move. But I _would_ force him to pay me the respect that I deserved, both as a woman and a mature fighter in my own right. That same respect that I saw gleaming back at me from the eyes of Goku and Piccolo and the others, and perhaps mixed in with a little awe, in Gohan's case. His regard warmed my heart, and I vowed that I would not fail him as I had the man he would be. I would let no harm come to him in this world, if it cost me my life. 

I sensed him then, that life force that was as familiar to me as my own, yet just a little different, a little less refined and tempered by the influence of time. Younger. _Innocent_, I thought, as I turned to meet him and his father. 

He had not yet witnessed the death of everyone he held dear, as my Gohan had. 

----------------------------------------------- 

She stood there, slim and tall like a young tree, solid as a mountain and every bit as prideful as her father, though she would not have thought so. She nodded solemn acknowledgement at me as a warrior among equals, and I hid a smile as I did the same. She was definitely Vegeta's daughter. 

A faint line between her eyebrows marred the face so like Bulma's as she said, "If you've come to reason with him, I wouldn't bother..." 

Gohan responded for me. "I think he will be interested in what Dad has to tell him," he said soberly. 

"I highly doubt that," the object of discussion said, turning only enough to gift us with the view of one arrogantly raised eyebrow. 

I nearly sighed; a rational conversation with Vegeta was like trying to handle a rabid porcupine. Prickly. "Well then, I guess you don't want to hear about how you can accomplish a year of training in only a day..." 

He finally turned to face us, though his arms were still crossed defiantly. I wondered that neither he nor Bra seemed to realize that their pose mirrored that of the other. "All right, Kakarott. Out with it!" he growled. 

He listened with misleading disinterest to my description of the time chamber, frowning only when I informed him that he'd have to alternate days with the rest of us. When I told him that he'd have to share the time with another, most likely Bra, he looked at her as though she were something stuck to the underside of his boot, and my heart went out to the girl. I did not miss the way her chin lifted another notch defiantly. 

I gathered that she would pull no punches, and I knew Vegeta better than he would have liked; he needed someone to raise the bar for him if he were going to reach the next level. She would do it, however unworthy an opponent he thought her. I rather hoped that she would change his mind. 

It would be good for the two of them to be shut up alone in there together, if they didn't end up killing each other first. 

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End Chapter 5 

I'm sure that some of you thought I'd decided not to write for Sojourn anymore, and I'm sorry for that. Let me say first of all that this story has an ending already written, and I've always intended to make it there. Don't worry. 

My life has just been in major upheaval for pretty much all of 2003. Fall Quarter is almost over, just a few more days. I'm hoping to write a lot in December, since I have no classes until January. 

I hope you enjoyed the chapter anyway, in spite of the horrendously long wait! :) 

Song lyrics by Everclear. 

("Abandon hope, all ye who enter here," is the inscription at the entrance to Hell in Dante's "Divine Comedy", for those of you who may not have recognized it.) 


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